


Let Me Bury My Hands (In Your Beautiful Hair)

by Arej



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Community: Do It With Style Events, Crowley Has All the Genders (Good Omens), Crowley Has Long Hair (Good Omens), Ea-Nasir - Freeform, Egyptian Mythological reference, F/F, F/M, Hair, Hale-Bopp Comet, He/Him Pronouns For Aziraphale (Good Omens), He/Him Pronouns For Crowley (Good Omens), I apologize for the semicolons except I love them, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), M/M, Mutual Pining, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Panic Attacks, Scene: Garden of Eden (Good Omens), Scene: Rome 41 AD (Good Omens), Scene: Soho 1967 (Good Omens), She/Her Pronouns for Aziraphale (Good Omens), She/Her Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Stargazing, The Arrangement (Good Omens), They/Them Pronouns for Crowley (Good Omens), Wadjet & Nekhbet (Two Ladies)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 11:22:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29188494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arej/pseuds/Arej
Summary: Six thousand years of yearning from two ineffable idiots in love, in all their permutations.Written for the Do It With Style Events 2021 Reverse Big Bang. Tags to be added with each chapter.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 87
Collections: Do It With Style Good Omens Reverse Bang





	1. In The Beginning

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by (and now including!) stunning art by the amazing, incomparable Idanit, here on [AO3](https://archiveofourown.org/users/idanit/profile) and [Tumblr](https://idanit.tumblr.com/). Check back with the epilogue to see the art that started it all!

_(Eden, 4004 BC)_

Aziraphale has always been a curious angel. The demon next to him - for it must be a demon, surely; if another angel had been set to stand watch on the Eastern Gate, he’d have been informed, and angels knew better than to shirk their duties, even now that the humans had gotten themselves kicked out of the Garden - the demon next to him only half looks the part, garbed in robes just like his but made of rough grey cloth, which are most certainly not Heavenly issue. He’s fairly certain that wearing such a color had been banned from Heaven during the Fall.

Even if it wasn’t, the transformation from snake to person when the demon first arrived atop the wall sort of gave the whole thing away. 

He’s never seen a transformation like that before - he’s never seen a transformation before. He’s never seen a _demon_ before, actually, warning memos from Heaven aside, so it’s possible that the transformation of his new neighbor is a completely normal demonic...thing.

But there is curiosity and then there is rudeness, and one is acceptable within moderation where the other is acceptable precisely never, so Aziraphale faces forward again to keep from staring. He only glances back when he hears the lift of wings against the wind, and then the demon is speaking, and it’s not staring to look at your conversational partner, is it?

Perhaps it is, when one’s conversational partner is a demon. Do demons retain the societal rules of Heaven and polite company? It’s not as if he’s looking over while he speaks - perhaps eye contact is a demonic taboo. Best not to risk it; he looks away, then realizes he quite missed the content of the demon’s overture in the middle of navigating cross-cultural etiquette, and has to ask him to repeat himself, mildly embarrassed.

The demon turns to speak directly to Aziraphale, seemingly unbothered and indeed seeking out direct eye contact with those intriguing yellow eyes of his, and it is by the grace of God alone that Aziraphale actually manages to catch the words - “I said, that went down like a lead balloon.”

Well, whatever a lead balloon is - some sort of demonic cultural reference? - it’s said as if it’s something bad, or if not bad at least specifically not good, which is quite true, as the ‘that’ is clearly the expulsion of the humans from the Garden, so even though he catches the words but not the reference, Aziraphale feels quite safe in agreeing. Best to let his neighbor lead the conversation; he certainly seems confident enough, having slithered up the wall to engage with Aziraphale without prompting, and at least this way Aziraphale isn’t violating any demonic cultural taboos.

The warning memos hadn’t included any tips on how to avoid giving offense during conversations with demons - hadn’t, in fact, ever referenced anything of the sort - so perhaps once they’ve finished speaking, providing Aziraphale successfully navigates an entire conversation with his new neighbor, he can send a memo of his own back so that they can update the protocols. And the memos, too; all the warnings from Heaven had emphasized heavily that the best way to identify a demon was by the filth and miasma that surrounded them.

But the demon beside Aziraphale has neither of those things. He’s clean, almost meticulously so. The wings that stretch behind him, iridescent black and reflecting back pinpricks of light in a galaxy of colors, are sleek and smooth and better groomed than Aziraphale’s own - which, while free of leaves and dirt and such, are admittedly slightly ragged at the edges from disregard. The fabric of his robes, rough as it is, is still spotless; the red accents along the shoulders and sleeves are deliberate, like an echo of the scales the demon had carried in his snake form. And the curls that frame his face are free-flowing and untangled, cascading like a waterfall down his back and over his shoulders, glinting like fire under the sun.

Meanwhile, the closest thing to a miasma Aziraphale can sense is the faintest hint of smoke, mostly sweet with a bare hint of acrid undertone, carried on the southward breeze. Within the Garden, with its riot of blossoming trees and blooming flowers, it would be nigh undetectable, but here atop the wall, standing directly downwind, there are no competing scents to confuse the issue. Hardly the miasma the memos had warned of. Indeed, he’d need to be in very close proximity for that acrid undertone to be anything more than a balancing note to the sweet smokiness. He’d likely have to lean close enough to touch the charcoal robes, and even then breathe deeply, maybe bury his nose in that riot of curls, discover if they’re as silky soft as they look - feel them brush against his face, slide through his fingers -

The thought shocks him out of his reverie. What could he possibly be thinking? That sort of thought is hardly polite curiosity; best put it aside.

He attends more fully to the conversation to find the demon still speaking.

“- offense and everything,” the demon finishes. And then, brow screwed up in consideration, “And I can’t see what’s so bad about knowing the difference between good and evil, anyway.”

He’d wondered the same thing himself upon being stationed at the Garden, being given the general rules: keep an eye on the Eastern Gate, and no humans eating fruit from the Tree of Knowledge allowed. All fairly standard guardian duty, though the latter was slightly more curious than the former. What harm could knowledge do, really? But it was his duty, and not his place to question God, and anyway there is acceptable curiosity, kept well inside the bounds of moderation and one’s own mind, and unacceptable curiosity, which leads to external questioning and disrespecting authority and all sorts of trouble, and, worse, is rude.

And anyway knowledge could do quite a lot of damage, clearly, if God had needed to cast the humans out of the Garden for it. He rallies and attempts to explain this to the demon - Crawley, what an odd name, it doesn’t seem to quite suit him - who is unimpressed with his logic but still friendly enough.

“The Great Plan’s ineffable?” he asks, and Aziraphale, quite proud of the explanation he’s worked up to explain why God might do things that don’t seem entirely sensible to Her children, ethereal, occult, or otherwise, starts off with the definition of ineffable, which the demon surely already knows - but best to ensure they start on the same footing.

Except Crawley isn’t listening. “Didn’t you have a flaming sword?” he asks, and Aziraphale’s explanation is thoroughly derailed. By the time they circle back to greater matters, he’s out of sorts and wrong-footed, and not entirely certain how he got there. He’d done the right thing, handing over his sword; Crawley had said so, before making that awful joke and smiling at him like the last ray of sunshine before a terrible storm.

Perhaps it’s a demonic thing - make a terrible joke about something your conversational partner finds concerning, to signal an end to the talking. But the smile was so genuine. It had caught Aziraphale off guard, dragged an answering smile from him before the words fully penetrated. And Crawley hadn’t walked - or slithered - away, as one normally does when a conversation ends.

Perhaps he overreacted. Again, that genuine smile - it had lingered in answer to Aziraphale’s own, as if it were a shared joke, not one made at his expense. As if Crawley had expected him to find it equally funny, and not be blinded by bright eyes and an open smile and curls like fire spun into - no.

_No._

Aziraphale stuffs the thought roughly aside just as water begins to fall from the sky, although he silently offers his wing to the demon for shelter as an apology for ruining the joke. He tries very hard not to be surprised - and pleased - when Crawley shuffles just a bit closer in acceptance. He tries very hard not to look over, and instead act like this is a perfectly normal thing which he has done. He tries very hard not to think about his outstretched wing, and the implications of his offer and its acceptance, and how this is absolutely not the way interactions with demons are supposed to go, given all those Heavenly warning memos and their emphasis on ‘being prepared for anything’ expecting that the ‘anything’ will always be more martial than social.

He fails at all three things, and when he glances left, at Crawley sheltering under his wing, and catches sight of a handful of stray raindrops glinting among his curls like diamonds scattered across a sea of fire, he tries extra hard not to lock the image away in his memory to keep and cherish forever.

And he fails at that, too.

* * *

_(Mesopotamia, 3507 BC)_

Crawley has spent the last five centuries circling in and out of the angel’s orbit. It took only a second meeting to complete the name exchange - Aziraphale, what a delightfully fussy name for a delightfully fussy angel - and four more after for Crawley to admit that she actively looks for him whenever she arrives somewhere. More accurately, it had taken Crawley approaching five humans - five! - with cloud-white hair, thinking them to be the angel only to be severely disappointed when they turned around and were not, actually, her angel.

Not that the angel is _hers_ , precisely, just - it’s - well, there’s only so many angels Crawley gets on with. One, actually. One angel that Crawley can have a conversation with, talk to, without having to worry about being blessed back to Hell, or discorporated, or smited.

_Smitten_ is another issue entirely, but that’s a different problem. She’s got it under control.

The rest of the angels Crawley has had the misfortune of crossing paths with - and there have been a few, too many for comfort - have all been strictly business, and why she’s been looking for a place to lie low. Well, that and the whole religious business in Egypt. She’s hoping to keep clear until the whole snake goddess thing dies down a bit, maybe, if Beelzebub doesn’t send her on another temptation in the region. Causing trouble is all well and good until it gets her noticed.

It’s not that she doesn’t like being noticed, just...not for the wrong reasons.

Aziraphale, too, has been keeping clear of Egypt, although his motivation is less about staying under the radar and more about being ashamed for accidentally prompting unauthorized worship. That’s a bit of a no-go for Heaven, if Crawley remembers right. Poor angel; he’d just been helping Crawley out of a tough spot - a perfectly angelic thing to do, even if it was in aid of a demon - and he’d gone and made the situation worse. It wasn’t his fault someone had caught sight of the wings. Now he’s hiding somewhere in Mesopotamia, head low and profile even lower, and she’s having a devil of a time tracking him down.

She’d done some damage control, tweaking the story with as many people as possible like a massive game of telephone, until the tale was about a white-winged vulture goddess and not a kind man with giant wings. It isn’t perfect, but since Heaven doesn’t seem overly concerned with who the Egyptians are worshipping - so long as it’s not angels - it should keep him out of trouble.

Not that Crawley is supposed to be concerned about keeping angels out of trouble. She’s not, generally. She’s actually gotten a few _into_ trouble, on purpose - caused a mess and pointed it in their direction, and forced them to flee the area, and hopefully the Earth, to keep them off her tail and out of her hair. They’re worthless, those angels, and she wouldn’t get them out of trouble if they begged her.

But Aziraphale…

There’s something about him. Something about the kind blue eyes and the bright grin, the way he tends to react before he thinks, the way he wiggles and fidgets and blurts and admits in every way except out loud that he, too, has questions. That he, too, is curious, like Crawley. That he, too, cares - in a way none of the other angels Crawley has seen - cares about humanity, these odd children of God, cast out of the Garden and left to make their own way.

Something about the way he revels in their creations - in bread, and beer, and stories, especially the stories. Something about the way he softens when Crawley sidles up, a new story on her tongue and a fresh loaf of bread in her hand, and invites her to sit at his fire or walk among the dunes or study the distant horizon with him like they did that first day on the wall. Something about the way he always, always offers to share whatever he has and whatever she’s brought, and only subsides if she promises - promises! Her, a demon, making a promise to an angel! - that she’s already eaten or drank her fill.

Something about the way his eyes crinkle at the edges, and his smile lights up not just his face but the entire world. Something about the softness of his hands as they pass broken loaves and ripe fruits and wooden cups; she has to hide her own hands, sometimes, so she won’t stare at the places where the feather softness of his skin brushes hers, won’t rub her own fingers back and forth across the area, trying to memorize the feeling. 

Something about the way his hair curls atop his head, like clouds gathered from the firmament, spun, and set into place; the way they shine almost brighter than his wings; the way the curls reach down to accent the soft curve of his ear and point the way to the smooth expanse of his neck. It reminds Crawley of downy feathers, of pillowy soft snow, of tufts of cotton ripe on the boll. 

Those curls are the other reason she has to hide her hands sometimes when they’re together, why she tucks them under her thighs or clasps them behind her back or grips something tight in a fist: to prevent herself from reaching out to touch. To ruffle her fingers through the ringlets, to feel them, feather soft, under her fingertips. Watch them shift and shuffle under her invading hand. Since that first day on the wall, with the clouds rolling in and the wind at her back, the bare beginnings of humanity setting off into the distance, she’s wanted to touch. Ached for it.

Again, smitten. Another issue entirely, but she’s handling it, has it under control.

But now she’s looking for Aziraphale, to let him know she’s resolved the Egypt issue - mostly - she hopes - to see him smile in gratitude, to sit or walk or stand beside him, to share with him the bread in her hand and the new story she helped spin out of their little incident. The story she helped _make_. About him, but not about him. To protect him.

It bulges in her chest, light and bright and hot, like sunlight. Like a promise.

Like something she isn’t bold enough to name, not yet.

She’s edging away from the thought, shying from the enormity of the feeling she isn’t ready to admit, when she spots him across the plaza. Spots the riot of white curls trailing to a gentle peak at the nape of his neck, the soft slope of his shoulders, the curves of him wrapped in pale linen, and the sunlight in her chest goes supernova. It spills along and down her arms, into her fingers. She clenches the loaf in suddenly warm hands, barely registering the way the crust crackles in protest.

Aziraphale turns, and her breath catches; the crust gives way and her fingers puncture clear through to the hot, soft inside, the way the sight of him has punctured right through her. Five hundred years and it still strikes her like this, the only blow he’s ever dealt her - his presence, open and kind and welcoming, warm, soft.

He smiles when he sees her. He smiles, and the world goes soft at the edges, narrows down to the space between them and the light behind him, lighting up those curls like the only halo she ever wants to see. The breath she doesn’t need is molten sunlight in her lungs, her hands a vise around the loaf, her knees so much water, joints replaced by the blue of his eyes.

He smiles, and somehow she finds the strength to take one step, to take two; to unclench her fingers and let the fresh loaf return to its original, unpunctured state. To smile back, open and easy, like the sight of him didn’t stop her in her tracks, like it’s a welcome surprise or a fortuitous happenstance and not her entire reason for being here, right now, at this moment, and all other moments besides. 

They’re drawing closer now, and it feels like it should be harder to breathe, but somehow it’s easier, like this is where she’s meant to be, like the world is only full of air when he’s near, like her ability to breathe, unnecessary as it is, centers on how close she can get to those cloud-whipped curls.

Smitten isn’t even the half of it, and she absolutely does not have it under control.


	2. Floodwaters Recede

_(Jawa, 2973 BC)_

_It looks so familiar_ , thinks Aziraphale, stepping carefully to the side of the road to let a herder pass with his tribe of goats, _and yet so different._

The air here is dry enough that her skin feels tight, the sun beating down on her shoulders with a palpable weight. It's the dry season - so much of the year is dry season, here - and yet she can’t ignore the anxious flutter in her chest, can’t stop herself from sniffing the air for the threat of rain whenever a breeze stirs. The sun, sensing her nerves, presses harder on her shoulders - or perhaps that’s the guilt. 

So much here reminds her of what happened nearly four decades past. 

She’d thought spending time away would fix this horrible, gnawing feeling. Spreading blessings and grace across the Earth these past years was supposed to be a penance, not for her part in the events - she’d done her duty, same as always - but for her doubting. Because standing there, standing next to a demon who might even be a friend, standing there watching the ark fill up and the skies blacken, she had wondered. 

Was Crawley right? Had God made the wrong call, spread her justice too thick? She hasn’t slept since the Flood; she doesn’t need to, of course, no angel needs to, but it’s a lovely human habit that she wholeheartedly appreciates. Laying one’s head down after a long day of work and feeling the tension drain from one’s body are pleasures of the best sort, a comfort nearly as thrilling as fresh bread and ripe berries and seared meat. 

But the first time she slept after - there was hardly time for sleeping on the ark, and no peace to be found in which to try - the first time she slept after disembarking, the screams of dying children and desperate, wailing parents had ensured that she found no comfort in it. 

So she’d hied off to the ends of the earth, as far from the demon as she could reasonably expect to get, to do good deeds and stop thinking about the Flood and forget the complicated things it made her feel, and never tried to sleep again. 

Was Crawley right? 

_That’s more the kind of thing you’d expect my lot to do._

She tries again, and fails, again, to bury the thought deep enough that she’ll never have to think it, but it persists, bubbling up within her like a traitorous wellspring, whispering in her ear. 

Was Crawley right? 

It is the furthest thing from acceptable curiosity she’s ever felt, and it terrifies her, and she can’t escape it. The memos from Heaven all warn about the perfidy of demons, how they turned their backs on God and fell from grace because they had the audacity, the sheer nerve, to question Her will, as if they had the authority to pass judgment upon Her. There is no one, not in Heaven nor Hell nor here on Earth, worthy enough to pass judgment upon God. Aziraphale knows this, knows that God’s Plan is ineffable, and that sometimes Her will may seem anathema to Her message, knows it is not her place to question. It is not her place to judge. 

And yet the broken screams haunt her still. 

Was Crawley right? 

Aziraphale paces along the road, breathing deeply of the arid air, filling her unnecessary lungs with dust and heat and fire and trying to scour away the question. She turns her eyes to the buildings around her, the stone walls and carefully planned reservoirs, the way the entire town is designed to trap and direct the water that is both life-giving and life-ending. 

Humans, too, have not forgotten the Flood. 

Hopefully they have forgotten the screaming. 

She wanders aimlessly, but not without intent; she steers clear of the echoes of children, unable still to distinguish screams of joy from screams of agony without a wholly unnecessary amount of personal anguish. She’s not strong enough, not yet. Best avoid it entirely, as she has been for nearly forty years. This return to the region is meant as a personal test, anyway, a way to prove to herself that despite the persistent question she has not lost faith in God’s Plan, that she can continue to do her angelic duty, no matter the cost to herself. 

The end of the thought hits her like a physical blow, stopping her mid-step with the sheer audacity of it, so close to disrespect. There shouldn’t be a cost to herself. She should have unwavering faith in the Plan, in God, in the orders of Heaven. She should not have doubts. 

Doubts are absolutely, without question, outside the realm of acceptable curiosity, and far too close to disrespecting authority. Doubts are disloyal. Doubts are a betrayal. Doubts are rebellious. 

Doubts are sinful. 

The anxious flutter in her chest thickens into an all-consuming dread. 

A pack of children race by, laughing, chasing something unidentifiable; her robes flutter in the breeze they make as they rush past. The laughter peaks, crescendos. There is a piercing shriek as one child stumbles into another and they both trip. 

The sound cuts through Aziraphale like a blade. 

It doesn’t matter that the sky is an endless blue and the air tastes of dust, that they are fully into the dry season and she hasn’t scented rain in weeks. It doesn’t matter that she’s here on the far edge of the region she once saw drowning under unfathomable amounts of water. It doesn’t matter that it’s been almost forty years - four decades - half a human lifetime since the Flood. 

It doesn’t matter, because she’s back there, and the screams rise in her ears like a Hellish chorus. 

She can hear them crying, screaming, begging for mercy. Calling upon God to rescue them from this horror that they don’t realize She has levied as judgment. They can’t conceive of God doing this thing to them, even as the water rises to cover the scarce points of high ground, even as the ark begins to float. Noah’s family, busy sorting animals and counting children and praising God for Her warning, are locked safely inside, but Aziraphale is standing alone on the deck, heart breaking for those left behind, left alone, standing stranded on the last lingering spots of no longer dry land. 

She sees Crawley there, chivvying a family through the rising waters, hears him call her name - but, no, that’s not right - 

“Aziraphale? Aziraphale,” Crawley repeats, and there he is on the deck with her, hands on her shoulders, golden eyes blazing. “Can you hear me?” 

“Please save them,” she whispers, her throat the only dry thing for leagues, but Crawley doesn’t go, even though she knows he did, even though she knows he never stepped foot on the ark. 

“Aziraphale,” says Crawley, “It’s me. Can you hear me?” 

He’s in dark cloth like always, like Eden, like the Flood, but there is a keffiyeh on his head, russet curls bundled underneath it, tucked away out of her sight, and that’s not right. That’s not the way it was. He wasn’t on the deck. 

“Please,” she says, and the word comes out desert-dry, cracked and aching. 

There is a curl slipping free from the keffiyeh, garnet-bright against the black cloth, swooping down to brush against a sharp cheekbone, and that is right, that it would escape the confines of concealing fabric. Nothing should hide those lovely locks, nothing should restrain them. She’d thought so even then, as the wind had whipped Crawley’s robes this way and that, as the storm had flung and tangled those shining curls while their bearer carried the oldest of three children, a parent to either side each holding another, arms linked and wading through chest-high waters with a determination born of desperation. 

She had wanted, ached, to touch them, to gather them in her hands and smooth the wind-whipped snarls, to hold him as the world was unmade around them, but Crawley had been so far, barely a glint of red in the distance, dark robes soaked with dark water, disappearing against the darker horizon. 

“Aziraphale,” says Crawley. “Follow my voice.” 

But she’s following the swoop of that spun fire curl, like a promise, like a lifeline. She reaches for it, but slowly, limbs moving as if it’s she who is fighting the water, she who tried to ferry two and three and five families to safety, she who defied God, not Crawley, who has gone very still and cautious as her hand reaches out. 

“Aziraphale,” he asks as her fingers catch on blood silk, as she tugs the wayward curl free, lets it spill across her hand. “Please, angel.” 

It’s soft and warm against her fingers, shining like an apple in the sun and satin smooth; the keffiyeh has protected it from the ravages of the storm winds - no - that’s not right - but it is - 

“Save -” she chokes out, and wants to say _me_ , but the word is too big and her voice too small and there’s nothing but dust in her throat. 

And Crawley hears it anyway. 

He must, for his hands slide up to frame her face, warm and rough and gentle and cradling her cheeks, and his face tips forward, and he presses their foreheads together softly. 

“Breathe with me, angel,” he says, and demonstrates. In slowly, filling up with heat and dust and silence; hold; out slowly, down into the space between them, their joined exhales stirring the curl twined between her fingers. And again, and again. 

She breathes with him, three times, four, the heat settling in her unnecessary lungs and chasing away the watery chill, the silence filling her ears, rubbing her thumb against the curl she’s trapped, feeling the slip slide of it against her skin. Five times. Six. 

Seven. 

A breeze cuts between them, whisks Crawley’s curl out from under her thumb. The loss of it in her hand is like a wound; she pulls back, staring at the freed ringlet dancing in the wind, pulling her face from the comforting cradle of his hands and her forehead from the warm press of his, pulling herself back, up, out of the moment, into reality. 

Pulling away. 

Crawley blinks at her, something soft and dangerous chasing across his face, before he pulls up a soft smile and lowers his hands. “You back with me, angel?” 

“I - yes,” Aziraphale answers, sitting upright and realizing in the same moment that she’s seated atop a low stone wall, the road she’d been following some dozen paces to Crawley’s back. Had she moved? Had he moved her? 

Did it matter? 

No. 

“Yes,” she says, for herself as much as for Crawley. “I’m here.” 

“Welcome back, angel,” he says, levering up out of his crouch. He hesitates briefly, then offers a hand down to her like a peace offering. 

_We don’t have to talk about this_ , it says, and Aziraphale grabs it with both hands, metaphorically and physically; uses it to pull herself up, and pretends she doesn’t miss it when she lets it slip through her fingers like the lone escaped curl from the keffiyeh. 

“It’s good to be back,” she says, and vows never to stray so far for so long again. 

* * *

_(Caral, 2592 BC)_

Crawley isn’t entirely certain why, or how it came to be, but it’s been nearly four centuries since Aziraphale’s panic attack in Jawa, and she has seen the angel at least once a decade since, like clockwork. Like Aziraphale is nervous about losing track of her, or has been assigned to follow her and report back to Heaven - 

No, that’s ridiculous. If Aziraphale had been tasked with keeping tabs on Crawley, she’d have told her. The angel is too scrupulous for that sort of skulduggery. 

Not that she minds the company. It’s just a little unnerving, that’s all. 

Aziraphale keeps finding her even in the most far-flung locations; Crawley made a bit of a game of it in the 28th century, just for fun, and the angel never disappointed. They’ve run into each other in the peaks of the Urals, in the far flung islands of the Pacific, in the vast plains of North America and the deserts of Asia. 

So it’s not really a surprise to see her browsing the market here in Caral, where Crawley has spent the past week desultorily tangling the local weavers’ nets during the night, and sighing when the response the following morning is resignation and responsibility instead of some other, more exciting reaction. It’s actually right on schedule. 

Crawley chose to be here in Caral for a reason. 

She watches from a short distance as the angel trades with the merchant - something exchanges hands, though she can’t tell what - and leaves with a maize leaf-wrapped bundle of fish, setting off through the market with the meandering gait Crawley knows she adopts when she’s looking for someone but doesn’t want to admit it. 

When she’s looking for _Crawley_ and doesn’t want to admit it. Crawley, despite her initial intention to sneak around and see how long it takes before Aziraphale resorts to inhuman - forgive her, _ethereal_ \- methods of locating her demonic counterpart, finds her feet carrying her on an intercept path almost immediately. 

Aziraphale looks entirely out of place here, soft white skin and softer white curls set against the browner, more sun-warmed locals, and yet she looks perfectly at ease. The crowd moves around her with barely a glance, accepting her and all her unusual coloration without a second thought. 

Probably something ethereal about that, too. Crawley will have to get her to teach her the trick. 

Her intercept path brings them together just as Aziraphale gives in and places a morsel of fish onto her tongue, and Crawley is in the perfect location to watch the way her eyes go wide with delight, how her mouth purses around the flavor and her hand tightens on the maize leaf bundle, ensuring it won’t go astray until she’s finished. 

Ah, yes, that look - there’s the reason. She’s spent the last dozen decades setting up and settling in in new places, preparing for their not-actually surprise meeting, specifically to chase that look when the angel gets a taste of the local cuisine. It never fails to delight. 

Then she catches sight of Crawley, and her face does something complicated, something somewhere between the reaction to new and exciting food and something like guilt, and she smiles. 

And the sun rises in Crawley’s chest. 

“Hiya, angel,” Crawley drawls, hoping to cover her sappy smile with something a little more nonchalant, a little more unaffected, a little more _cool_. She mostly succeeds. Mostly. 

She thinks. 

“Crawley,” says Aziraphale. “How nice to see you.” 

“I see you found the market.” 

She doesn’t ask why Aziraphale is here; she knows. She knows, and she wants Aziraphale to want to tell her. To choose to tell her. 

To choose her. 

She swats the thought away. 

“- most impressively cooked fish,” Aziraphale is saying, when Crawley tunes back in. She’s holding out the maize leaf bundle, inside which chunks of steaming white fish gleam in some sort of sauce. Crawley considers - she likes fish, and likes the local fish even better than the options back on the other side of the world - but demurs; she likes watching Aziraphale eat better. 

“Just ate, angel, sorry. Would’ve waited if I’d known you were here.” 

“Oh,” says Aziraphale, smile faltering just a little at the edges. “Are you very busy here then?” 

Crawley thinks of her nightly net tangling, and how it hasn’t netted her (hah) anything more serious than heavy sighs from the victims, and how none of that is worth reporting to Hell. “Nah,” she answers instead. “Just passing through, really.” 

“Oh,” says Aziraphale again. “How fortuitous, then, that our paths crossed.” 

Crawley hums noncommittally. _She_ knows it’s not happenstance. She suspects Aziraphale knows but, perhaps, won’t admit that it’s not happenstance, but that’s not a can of worms she’s interested in opening. Not yet. Not if there’s a chance Aziraphale will stop. 

“Come on,” she says instead. “I know a place.” 

She leads Aziraphale through town, past a group of musicians playing pelican bone flutes and a rowdy crowd of children - Aziraphale doesn’t seem to react to their laughter, though Crawley is on high alert just in case - and into the amphitheatre, where people are sitting on the low steps in small groups, talking and laughing and working at handcrafts. They settle on an upper tier, some distance away from the others, and watch the crowds as Aziraphale finishes off her fish. 

Well. Aziraphale is watching the crowds. 

Crawley is watching Aziraphale. 

It should be indecent, the way the angel eats, all fluttering eyelashes and soft moans, almost too quiet to hear. It _is_ indecent, and yet somehow not, as if the very fact that it is an angel doing such things sanctifies the actions, lifts them from vulgarity and elevates them towards holiness. 

It ties Crawley up in knots worse than the ones she put in those poor weavers’ nets. 

When Aziraphale places the final chunk of fish in her mouth after using it to carefully scoop up the last of the sauce, chewing slowly as if she might miss some key flavor by going too fast, Crawley thinks that’s the end of it; the maize leaf is set aside, nearly spotless, and Aziraphale rolls the bite in her mouth one last time before swallowing. Crawley opens her mouth to speak - and promptly slams it shut when Aziraphale lifts one soft finger to her lips. 

Right. The sauce. 

Angelic or not, sanctified or not, there’s no lifting the vulgarity from Crawley’s thoughts as Aziraphale licks sauce from her fingers, so she lifts her eyes to the angel’s hair as a last ditch distraction. It’s not exactly long now, but it is longer than usual; Aziraphale often keeps it short no matter what form her corporation takes or how strange it might be in the locale, but no one ever questions, and no one ever minds. 

Crawley certainly doesn’t mind. 

The setting sun sparks glints of gold in her white-blond curls, which drape down her neck to rest just shy of her shoulders, obscuring the soft pink of the back of her neck and the shells of her ears. The curls are loose, mostly waves, undulating like white sand beaches or pearlescent fairy floss, which, despite not existing yet, is a perfect metaphor for Aziraphale: soft, sweet, and arguably delectable. 

This train of thought is distinctly unhelpful, so she tries focusing on the hair again. Hair is safe. 

Or at least so it had seemed back in Jawa, centuries ago. It had seemed to center Aziraphale when she took hold of a lock of Crawley’s hair and the entirety of her heart. Not that the angel hadn’t already had it - Crawley is pretty sure she’s had it since Eden, since _I gave it away_ , although she will admit now that she hadn’t been willing to admit it to herself then - but the way those angelic fingers had curled around one wayward lock, had tugged it free, it had felt like her hands were inside Crawley’s chest, curving around her heart, pulling it free of its bony prison. 

She’s been so, so careful not to change her hair since, to keep it long and unfettered, on the off chance Aziraphale might reach for her again, but she hasn’t. 

She wants so badly to return the gesture right now. 

Aziraphale turns to her, smiling, just as she’s working up the courage to reach out. Her fingers twitch traitorously in her lap. 

“It has been lovely to see you, Crawley. You do always seem to find the best places.” 

She knows this dance, these steps; has traced them a hundred times before. She’s supposed to smile, to laugh, to gesture widely and say something witty, something like ‘that’s because I’m the best,’ or ‘only the best places are good enough for a demon like me, angel.’ Something cool, like ‘of course I do.’ Something casual, like ‘until next time, then?’ But her fingers ache and her heart hurts, and what comes out instead is, “Only the best for you, angel.” 

The smile on Aziraphale’s face trembles, just barely, and Crawley is already cursing herself for fumbling these well-worn steps. 

“Well,” says Aziraphale, standing. Crawley stays seated, cast in the angel’s shadow, feeling the cold dread of a mistake creep across her sun-warmed skin. “Well. I’m afraid I must be off. It - it has been lovely to see you,” she repeats, eyes turned away, distant and downcast. A breeze ruffles the gold white curls and sends something awful skittering in Crawley’s chest. 

“Of course.” She manages, just barely, to pass off her reply as casual, to wrap the growing despair in a cloak of indifference. She thinks. 

She hopes. 

“See you around, then?” 

“Yes, I - ” Aziraphale pauses then, her hands fluttering, fidgeting, restless and uneasy, and Crawley feels each movement like a stab. She did this. She’s done this. She fumbled the dance, misstepped, was too open and too honest and too raw, and she ruined something in the process. 

The sun is hot, the stone beneath her warm, but the air here in Aziraphale’s shadow is icy cold. 

“I shall see you, my dear,” Aziraphale says softly, and takes her leave without looking at Crawley, picking her way carefully down the stone steps and winding through the crowds. She moves like lightning, there and gone, or perhaps Crawley is just moving too slowly in the wake of her fatal error; either way, she’s gone before Crawley has a chance to answer, to attempt to rebuild what she had so carelessly, thoughtlessly broken. 

Aziraphale takes the shadow with her when she goes, in accordance with the laws of physics. 

The cold remains, in defiance of them. 

Crawley stares after her, desperate, hoping with her whole heart that the angel will turn around and knowing, deep down where she doesn’t want to think about it, that she won’t. Watches the way her shadow dances along the steps, flitting over and across groups of people, passing without notice, without impact, as a shadow should. Watches the gentle bounce of her curls, how they ruffle in the breeze, how they sway as Aziraphale climbs the opposite rise. 

Watches Aziraphale pause there, on the far edge of the amphitheatre. Her heart thuds heavily in her chest, hopeful, wanting - 

But the angel just tucks a curl behind her ear, ducks her head, and continues forward. She does not look back. She does not turn back. 

The cold lingers in Crawley’s bones for years. 

* * *

_(Egypt, 2215 BC)_

The comet draws Aziraphale to Egypt like a beacon. 

It’s been nearly four centuries since he allowed himself to seek Crawley out. They’ve seen each other in the interim, of course, but not by design. Not his design, at least, and based on the way Crawley hasn’t seemed inclined to linger when they do meet, not by demonic design, either. But their paths _have_ crossed, as is expected of hereditary enemies set to oppose each other, even if it isn’t with nearly the frequency as they had before Caral. 

So there’s really no excuse for the way Aziraphale aches to see the demon, but he does, and so he finds himself traversing the deserts of Egypt, searching for the best vantage point from which to watch the stars. 

The comet has been around for long enough that it is no longer entirely novel, but the humans still stop to stare at it, cluster in groups and discuss what it might portend, lift their children to their shoulders for a better view of a celestial event so magnificent it can hardly be missed. It’s endearing, really, how the parents and caretakers and even older siblings will lift the younger, savoring their delight at an elevated view that changes very little but the viewer’s sense of importance. 

But there are no humans out here, even though the view is, objectively, better. Possibly because there are no humans, with their cookfires and dwellings and fidgety distraction, to interfere. 

And so this is where he will find Crawley. 

He catches sight of the demon atop a nearby dune - well. He catches sight of the demon’s profile, a silhouette cut out of the starfield, a void in the expanse of stars in the vague shape of a being. Out here in the wilds of the desert, days from the nearest water source, there is no need to hide; Crawley’s wings are out, held relaxed and loose and somehow reflecting back pinpricks of starlight. 

Aziraphale ducks his own head to hide the involuntary smile and begins his careful trek up the side of the soft dune. 

Crawley senses him, or perhaps hears him; the susurrus of dislodged sand echoes in the still night, even if his footfalls themselves are silent. The soft _fwoomph_ as Aziraphale releases his own wings is even more telling. 

“I thought I might find you here,” says Aziraphale, glancing over with a friendly smile. Crawley’s soft spot for the stars is an open secret, one he admitted to right there on the wall at Eden, the first time Aziraphale caught him staring. 

Crawley doesn’t shift his eyes from the bright tail of the comet, or turn his head from the trail it blazes across the sky, but the edge of his mouth tilts in what might perhaps be an acknowledging smile. “Wasn’t aware you were looking.” 

Aziraphale fidgets; there is no good answer that won’t end in a confession he isn’t ready for, or an argument he cannot bear, so he says nothing. Crawley, blessedly, seems to take this silence for the admission it is, even if the hint of a smile smooths away into a more neutral expression. 

“Am I that predictable, then?” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t say predictable. You’re a demon,” Aziraphale offers, then gives himself a mental kick when Crawley’s mouth twists as if he’s tasted something sour. “I daresay it’s against your nature.” 

“Must be somewhat predictable if an angel can find me,” says Crawley, still staring intently at the comet. Aziraphale finds himself desperately wishing the demon would look at him, aching for the weight of that gaze, to hold the entirety of Crawley’s attention, if only for a moment. 

Which is why he dares to murmur, as if it might command Crawley to turn, “Just one angel.” 

Crawley continues to stare resolutely upward. Perhaps he hadn’t heard. Perhaps - no. It’s silent out here in the desert, so quiet he can still pick out individual grains of sand sliding down the dune, dislodged from his trek up here. If he can hear that, Crawley surely heard him. Heard him, and chose not to react. 

Aziraphale’s chest aches with disappointment. 

“Well,” he continues, after a long battle to control his expression, at which he fails spectacularly. Perhaps it’s for the best Crawley hadn’t looked. He turns his own face to the comet, and the conversation in a less fraught direction. “This is a truly spectacular sight.” 

“Better enjoy it while you can,” Crawley says. “It won’t be back for about four millennia.” 

Aziraphale looks over at him, stunned, but the starlight illuminates only the same neutral expression as before. “Are you certain?” 

“Yeah,” says Crawley. There is a fondness set in the curve of his lips and the tilt of his brows as he studies the comet’s trail. “Once in a lifetime opportunity, seeing this.” 

Once in a lifetime for humans, he means, unless he’s planning to be elsewhere in four millennia. Aziraphale finds himself nervous, suddenly, at the thought Crawley might not be here with him the next time the comet comes around. 

“Then I am certainly glad to be here,” he offers, and Crawley’s fondness softens into a smile. 

The starlight bathes his face in cool light, softens the sharp edges of his cheekbones and tempers the blazing gold of his eyes. It dances along the curves of his wings, reflecting back a universe of colors nestled among the ink-black spill, a starfield in miniature contained in the sweep of feathers. 

Aziraphale’s fingers twitch with the urge to touch. 

While Crawley studies the sky, Aziraphale studies him; commits the hard lines and soft colors of his silhouette to memory, paints the sight of him here against the stars across his heart. There are a hundred images there, a thousand, stretching back to that first meeting, keeping him company in the between times and lonely moments. He hoards images of Crawley the way humans store food, and for much the same reason - for sustenance in the hard times, when the days are cold and the nights are bleak and the promise of a future is so distant as to be unknowable. 

He tries not to stare. Truly, he does. It’s just that Crawley never seems to mind, if he even notices, and the sight of him is such a balm to Aziraphale’s soul. 

The starlight reflects not only in his wings but the muted fire of his hair, flows along the loose curls and picks out highlights in the braids. It’s different, subtly, than the way it was in Eden. It’s softer, somehow, wilder; there was a rigidity to the curls in that first meeting that time and familiarity have loosened, a decorum washed out by the Flood, a stiffness brushed away by his fingers that scorching day in Jawa. 

It has changed so much since Eden, even while being changed so little. 

His hands ache with the memory of that one soft curl, the slip slide of it between his fingers, the way Crawley’s face had been soft and open and so, so cautious even as the demon guided him back from the brink of something unspeakable. He flexes them, trying to stretch the memory out and stuff it aside, but it makes his fingertips tingle with want. 

Crawley’s hair shines, like garnets in moonlight. Starlight suits him. All light suits him, truly, but at this moment all Aziraphale can think about is the way starlight highlights the rainbow of colors hidden in the depths of his wings, the way it accentuates the warmth of his eyes, the way it glitters in his hair like scattered diamonds in a sea of fire. 

Aziraphale aches. 

“Hmm?” says Crawley, one brow lifting in inquiry, and Aziraphale realizes abruptly he must have said something, although for the life of him he can’t remember what. 

“You know so much about them, is it - why?” He seizes on the first sentence that comes to mind and makes a garbled mess of it, so much so that Crawley’s brows draw down, and he - 

He looks over - 

“Sorry?” says Crawley, the full weight of that warm gold gaze on him, starlight sparkling in his hair, and Aziraphale’s heart trips over itself in its excitement. 

“The stars,” he babbles, gesturing widely at the sky; Crawley’s gaze lifts to track the movement, so he pulls his hands back in close, desperate not to lose that gaze. Crawley looks obligingly back at him, even more confused than before. “You. You have quite the affinity for them.” 

Crawley blinks at him, slow and considering, a question chasing across his face and then clearing with something like caution. “I like them.” 

He cannot, absolutely _cannot_ , ask why. Not only is it entirely not his business, and dangerously personal, but it would be rude to just - 

“Why?” 

Aziraphale turns abruptly to face the comet, trying to hide the flare of heat on his cheeks. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. You don’t have to answer that, I apologize.” _Worthless angel, of all the -_

“They stay,” Crawley answers, and Aziraphale whips back around to stare at him, only to find Crawley contemplating the stars again. “Humans live and die, cities rise and fall, but the stars - they’re the only things that’ll still be here as long as we are.” 

Something in Aziraphale’s chest eases at the oblique implication that Crawley will still be here next time the comet comes to visit. 

“And I always know where I am, with them,” he continues. “Anywhere on Earth, I can just look up and find my way. Stars are reliable like that.” 

The smile on his face is soft and somehow rueful, as if he has confessed too much. The itching in Aziraphale’s fingertips reaches a crescendo, and he buries his hands in his robes to stifle it. 

“You didn’t have to answer that,” Aziraphale finally manages, once he’s got his robes gripped so tightly his fingers can no longer twitch. “It was rude of me to ask.” 

“I’ll always answer your questions, angel,” says Crawley, voice gentle, eyes bright. He glances over, catches Aziraphale looking, and smiles. “Always.” 


	3. Revelations

_(Dilmun, 1749 BC)_

Things have settled between them since the comet. Their interactions aren’t as frequent as those years between Jawa and Caral, but they’re comfortable again, less fraught with tension; Crawley no longer feels the need to escape warring with the need to be close whenever Aziraphale is nearby. Their meetings are still overwhelmingly by chance, but Crawley doesn’t mind. They run into each other often enough.

So it’s a pleasant surprise to spot Aziraphale’s bright hair across the market. The angel is deep in conversation, waving a tablet at - oh. Oh no.

Aziraphale is red about the ears and nearly yelling when Crawley stops next to him.

“- absolutely unconscionable - ”

“My copper is of very fine quality,” the merchant insists, though he edges backwards, trying to escape. “The best.”

“It most certainly is _not_ ,” Aziraphale fires back, shaking the tablet. “It’s the wrong grade! And it was _late_!”

“Aziraphale,” Crawley interrupts, and the angel rounds on them.

“This merchant,” he begins, gesturing with the tablet, but before he can finish, the merchant is gone, bolting through the market as if Hell itself is on his heels. Crawley almost sympathizes with him; Aziraphale is blazing with barely restrained fury, and as intimidating as it is for a demon, it’s probably worse for humans. “How - how dare he! Crawley, he’s _running_!”

“He is, angel,” Crawley agrees, although privately the demon believes running isn’t quite strong enough a word. Fleeing, perhaps.

“I simply cannot believe this - what - ” Aziraphale stares after the merchant’s retreating back, soon lost in the crowd, and deflates after losing sight of him. “What a terrible businessman!”

“Not usually your sort, businessmen,” Crawley observes, turning to cross the marketplace; Aziraphale follows without protest. “How did you get caught up in all that?”

“All - all that? Crawley, did you - are you _responsible_?”

“Not generally,” says Crawley, and Aziraphale huffs at the poor joke. “But yeah, he’s, er, he’s my fault. Did that temptation a few months back.”

“That’s not usually your sort, either.”

“No,” they agree. “Hell’s orders.”

Aziraphale huffs again. “I suppose it’s my fault, then, for not sensing.”

“It was subtle work,” says Crawley gently, guiding the angel into a tavern. “Some of my best, I’d say.”

“Yes, well.” Aziraphale drops onto a nearby stool and rests his head in his hands, fingers threaded through cloud-white curls, mussing their setting. “I suppose I should steer clear of him, then, if he’s already influenced so thoroughly.”

“Didn’t take much, really.” Crawley gestures to the barkeep, who nods in agreement, then slides onto their own stool across from the angel. “Just needed a little polish. Hell wanted him for whatever reason, I just...spread the influence around a little.”

Aziraphale peers up at him, brows lifted, and huffs for a third time, scrubbing his hands gently through his hair. Crawley stares at the way they ruffle under the pass of his hands and tries to focus. “I do wish you weren’t so good at your job, my dear.”

The endearment sits like a warm weight in Crawley’s chest, wrapped in the unexpected pleasure of a sideways compliment and a vague sense of guilt at having caused the angel undue distress. Not that they knew, or had any way of knowing, that Aziraphale would be in the area doing business with Hell’s target less than a year after a successful - and rather artful - temptation. Crawley yanks a smile onto their face in lieu of dealing with that complicated bundle of feelings.

“Wouldn’t have dreamed of it, if I’d known it’d cause you trouble,” they say without thinking, and promptly curse themselves.

This is exactly - _exactly_ \- the same sort of brainless comment they’d blurted out in Caral that had led to four centuries of awkwardness, and now they’ve gone and done it again.

But Aziraphale, busy smiling up at the barkeep depositing their mugs on the table, doesn’t seem to mind. “Oh, thank you,” he says, smile open and free, and the tiny kernel of hope Crawley has kept clamped closed for going on eight centuries now cracks just the tiniest bit open. 

“At least he’ll get what’s coming to him. I suppose that should be some sort of relief.”

Crawley hums around their own mug, considering, and makes a minute adjustment to the temptation already in motion. Just a tiny one. Barely noticeable, adding an extra dash of pride on top of all that greed and sloth. Just one more sin for the pile. He was already proud anyway; it’ll hardly change his daily behavior.

Hell’s always on them to be more direct in their temptations, anway. This’ll shut them up for a while.

“If it makes you feel any better,” they offer, and the way Aziraphale’s head snaps up from his mug wedges the hope kernel open even further, “I know no one will forget what a terrible businessman he is.”

“Is that - what - how do you know?”

“Part of the temptation. Tablets like this,” Crawley taps the tablet Aziraphale abandoned on the table, and it disappears obligingly. “Well, he’ll hoard those, yeah?”

Aziraphale arches a brow at him, not judgmentally, but contemplatively. “And?”

“And, you know. One day the humans will find them again, and remember what he did to people.” _To you_ , they don’t say. “And they’ll drag his ass across history.”

“Drag his…” Aziraphale mouths the last of the phrase, which Crawley knows is a little too early, then sets it aside. “And this is...bad?”

“Well,” Crawley hedges. “I’m sure there’ll be some people who think, you know, hey, what a way to be famous. So it won’t be a warning to all of them, or anything. Free will and all. But a lot more will judge him. I wager his name will be, whatsit - ” they wave a hand for a moment, thinking, while Aziraphale observes with a single lifted brow “remin- no. _Synonymous with_ bad business.”

“Oh, you wager?” Aziraphale’s eyes sparkle. “And how am I supposed to take that wager, knowing you’ve oh so carefully orchestrated things in your favor?”

His hair is still in disarray; it sways with his chuckle, tufted up in odd places, and Crawley has a nearly overwhelming urge to reach out and smooth it. They sprawl backwards instead, kicking one leg out into the walkway next to the table. “I’m a demon, Aziraphale; wouldn’t be any fun if the wager weren’t rigged.”

“Hmm,” says Aziraphale, but there is a smile hiding behind the purse of his lips, which he tries unsuccessfully to bury in his mug. The kernel in Crawley’s chest creaks in protest, and they cast about desperately for a distraction. 

“Your - ” they gesture helplessly until Aziraphale lifts one hand to his hair, mouthing _oh_ , and starts to set it aright.

Crawley takes a moment to get themselves under control as Aziraphale does the same for his wayward curls, but can’t help watching as the angel’s fingers flatten and fidget locks into place. Swirls of cloud are gently settled; fluffs of cotton are finger-combed and tamed. Crawley can feel their heart being tugged and twisted about with every pass of fingers, yearning for their own locks to be under the careful ministration of angelic hands.

When Aziraphale lifts his eyebrows in question, hand held to the side, Crawley smiles and raises their mug in approval. Aziraphale lifts his own mug in answer, and they both drink deeply.

“Well,” says Aziraphale. “If you’re absolutely certain that - that _fraudster_ Ea-Nasir is going to get what he deserves - ”

“He will,” promises Crawley, and lays a curse on the merchant’s home, protecting the room where the tablets will reside, just to be absolutely certain.

“Then I suppose I owe you the rewards of your wager. What do you say to another round of drinks?”

Crawley, delighted, drains their mug and sets it aside, grinning. “I say bring it on.”

* * *

_(Troy, 1122 BC)_

It’s been six centuries, and Aziraphale is still thinking about it.

Why had Crawley - well. The why of the temptation is hardly a mystery; demons get orders the same as angels, and Crawley is of course no more capable of denying their edicts than Aziraphale is of disobeying Heaven. Simply put, Crawley had tempted Ea-Nasir because they had to.

But they hadn’t had to ensure that history would remember the merchant’s poor practices.

Aziraphale sighs from where he stands atop the last remnants of Troy’s great wall, watching the sacking of the city below. He’s here as a witness, though what Heaven needs to remember about the fall of Troy is beyond his - what would Crawley call it? - his pay grade. He stuffs the curiosity down where it can no longer bother him, returning to the other, more personal, less insubordinate mystery. Heaven surely cannot find fault with his dissecting of a demon’s actions and motivations.

Heaven cannot, but he can - what does it _matter_ what Crawley’s motivations are? The demon is a mystery, so different than every warning Heaven has sent, so at odds with the memos and the lectures and the stories of other angels. Surely that makes their motivations different from those of other demons, and that should be the end of that line of inquiry, should satisfy Aziraphale’s curiosity and put the matter to rest.

Except it isn’t, and it doesn’t. Aziraphale can’t help but suspect there’s something altogether more personal in Crawley’s reasons for doing things, the same as there is for his own.

Which is why, when he hears a familiar serpentine slither, he turns instinctively to his left.

“Fancy meeting you here,” says Crawley, grinning. “Come to gloat?”

“Gloat? I - I had nothing to do with this,” says Aziraphale, and flinches as an embattled structure collapses in the distance. “I - Heaven sent me to observe - ”

“‘S alright, angel, just teasing.” Crawley scrubs their hands through - oh. Oh.

Their hair is newly short, shorn close to the scalp, cut so close Aziraphale can make out the pale skin beneath. There is just barely enough to ruffle under Crawley’s fingers as the demon’s hands pass along the curve of their neck. There are no more curls to follow, no flowing locks or twisted tresses; just a layer of garnet fire fuzz that somehow looks even softer than the silk Aziraphale’s fingers still remember.

For all the differences Crawley has affected to their corporation, and all the ways Aziraphale has seen them, this change somehow stops his heart in his chest.

Crawley is speaking, gesturing widely at the destruction below and the flickering shadows of the conquering army in the fading daylight, but Aziraphale cannot bring himself to follow the conversation, too wrapped up in the emotional whirlwind of change.

It isn’t grief, this feeling - he had thought it might be, with that first wrenching of his heart, and maybe there had been a moment of it. But this persistent, nagging ache is something else, something new. Something curious.

Aziraphale wants desperately to reach out and touch, to see if the downy layer is as soft as it promises to be. He wants to smooth his palms over it, to cradle Crawley’s skull in his hands, rub his thumbs across the hint of curl at the temples and feel the tiny hairs at their nape with the pads of his fingertips. He wants the soft prickle of cut hairs against the sensitive flesh between his fingers and the slide of downy silk against his palms.

This is most definitely not grief.

There’s a word he first heard in Athens, at the beginning of this damnable war; a word that had lodged itself somewhere under his ribcage, sticking there like an itch he cannot scratch. A word that has been lying in wait for the right moment to present itself and ruin him.

_Pothos._ Longing. Yearning.

Desire.

The word rips through him and leaves Aziraphale’s world in tatters.

“- alright there, angel?” Crawley is saying, peering at him carefully. Aziraphale’s heart flutters at the concern in the demon’s voice, at the way Crawley is poised, turned inwards towards Aziraphale the same way sunflowers face the sun, right hand hesitating at waist-height as if to reach out, to steady him, but unsure of its welcome.

“Yes, quite.” _Not at all._ “I was just rather startled - you’ve changed your hair.”

It is not at all what he meant to say, but there’s no going back now; Aziraphale drags his eyes from Crawley’s shorn scalp, skipping nervously over the demon’s baffled and oddly soft expression, and turns resolutely back towards the collapsing remnants of Troy.

“I did,” says Crawley. “Bit dramatic, I suppose, but - “

“It looks lovely,” Aziraphale blurts, and it takes every ounce of self-control to keep his corporation from blushing. The momentary silence from his left _feels_ pleased, but he dares not look, lest he lose the internal struggle to keep all his body’s blood precisely where it belongs and not decorating his face.

“Thanks,” says Crawley after a moment, and there is the soft rasp of their hand rubbing over short-shorn locks again. Aziraphale sneaks a glance, just enough to watch the way the strands ripple with the passage of the demon’s hand.

Then has to trap the migrating blood in his chest, where it blossoms there, a spill of heat and yearning that deepens almost immediately into an unexpectedly familiar ache.

Oh, he knows this feeling, even if he only now has a proper word for it, and putting a word to the feeling - having, suddenly, an answer for the question that has lingered since their first encounter, since that first walltop discussion while observing the humans below - oh. His heart clenches helplessly, not with pothos, but with fear.

If only he’d realized - the curiosity was safe. The not knowing was safe. But now that he has an answer…

If he knows it, then Heaven can learn it.

He has to be careful.

He looks over at Crawley again. The demon stands atop the wall just a few feet to his left, gazing out over Troy with a soft smile on their face, not because of the destruction - he knows Crawley too well, now, after all this time, to even pretend to believe that smile is about the collapse of a city - but because of...this. This camaraderie, this familiarity. This friendship, as evidenced by Aziraphale’s unguarded and uncensored compliment. This -

Aziraphale stops himself there, the growing awareness of just how dangerous it is to name something clogging in his throat and stinging at his eyes.

He studies the demon in profile again the way he has a hundred, a thousand times before; stores the image deep in his heart, where it slots in neatly with the scores of other images, and then carefully locks that part of his heart away. Heaven can demote him, can punish him; can set him the most menial and unfulfilling of tasks for all eternity, if they discover what he feels. What he knows. It would be miserable, yes, and best avoided, but that’s not his primary concern.

Heaven will _destroy_ Crawley.

So he rips his gaze away from the demon in profile, soft and smiling, and forces himself forward, and buries his treasure hoard of Crawley images as deep as he possibly can.


	4. Patterns and Echoes

_(La Venta, 841 BC)_

Something isn’t fitting right. It hasn’t been fitting right for centuries, really - millennia - since stepping foot on Earth - but it’s getting worse, somehow. Crawley has tried everything she can think of: changed clothes, changed hairstyles, changed genders. Changed locales. Everything fits, but nothing fits; as the years pass, the itch under her skin only grows worse. It’s starting to drive her out of her gourd.

So when she spots the angel across the plaza, trading happily with a food vendor, she welcomes the distraction.

“Angel,” she calls, and her chest heats when Aziraphale glances over his left shoulder. “I see you’ve found the local delicacies.”

The smile on Aziraphale’s face is like the sun as he lifts the cup he’s just received. “Crawley, have you tried this? Cocoa?”

Oh, that’s new - something warps, dimming the warmth in her chest like storm clouds blotting out the sun, with Aziraphale’s words. Her gaze flicks down to the smile again, open and relaxed, and the clouds scatter, the sky clears. She is just as excited to see Aziraphale as always.

_Hmm._

“‘Course I have,” says Crawley. She swats aside the urge to confess to her part in encouraging the popularity of the drink, uncertain what sort of reaction it might get and, more troubling, what her own reaction to his reaction would be. The warped feeling is easing, now, but it’s not gone yet. “Have to try all the indulgences; part of the job description.”

Aziraphale’s face goes through a complicated tangle of expressions - she spots discomfort and...fondness? - before smoothing out into polite happiness, a little dimmer than that initial sun-bright smile, but warming nonetheless. “Well. Then I don’t have to share.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” she teases, and Aziraphale laughs, and the last of the warped feeling is gone. “What brings you here?”

“Oh, nothing official. Just taking in the sights.”

“A little outside of your usual haunts,” Crawley observes, and Aziraphale hums at her in acknowledgment.

“It’s not as if I haven’t been to this side of the world before, you know.”

She does know; she’d been there, on a day just as hot but not nearly as humid as this one. She grins a little at the playful asperity in Aziraphale’s tone but otherwise ignores it. He’s more fun when riled up, anyway. “Tired of your Heavenly duties?”

The split second silence before Aziraphale answers, “Of course not,” tells her all she needs to know, really.

“Taking a bit of a vacation, myself,” says Crawley, and starts walking. Aziraphale falls into step on her right without comment. “Hell’s not too happy about it, mind you, but I’m the best agent they’ve got up here, so they’re letting it happen.”

Aziraphale tsks at her. “We’re not meant for vacations, Crawley, you know that.”

There it is again, that warped, twisting feeling; she tries to pin it down but it squirms out from under her grasp, leaving her even more confused than before and itchy under the skin. “Says who?”

“Well, says - says our respective sides. Heaven and Hell.”

And there’s a different twisted and warped feeling, oozing like something rancid, that she fails, again, to pin down for scrutiny. Her mood takes a dramatic dip, and she can’t stop herself before the next words leave her lips. “What’re you doing here, then, if you’re ‘just taking in the sights’?”

The answering twist of Aziraphale’s mouth somehow only makes her feel worse. “Of course I’m laying blessings where I see the need, even now. Just because I don’t have a specific task to complete for Heaven doesn’t mean that I - that I’m taking a - a vacation.”

Crawley keeps walking in frustrated silence, berating herself for letting it get so out of hand. What is _happening_ to her? A conversation with Aziraphale was supposed to be a distraction from this gnawing, itchy feeling; instead, it’s made things worse. 

“Do you know they have a writing system here?”

It takes a not insignificant amount of effort to accept the olive branch of conversation for what it is. Aziraphale, infuriating angel that he is, has always been oddly capable of reading her moods. Of reading her. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that he’s offering her a way out of the spiral they’d started on.

That she somehow wants to keep following the spiral all the way down to the bitter center is a surprise.

She stuffs the destructive impulse aside and grabs onto the olive branch with both hands, although her voice is a little less friendly than she intends. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” says Aziraphale, mercifully overlooking her tone. Or perhaps he doesn’t notice. “It reminds me a little of how the Egyptians are doing it - it’s different, of course, but much more similar than how the Greeks are going about it - ”

Crawley listens to Aziraphale’s cheerful pattering about linguistic development and glyphic versus alphabetic writing systems and gets lost somewhere in his tangent about different logosyllabic styles, letting his words wash over and through her like a cleansing stream. The awkward, twisty feeling in her chest eases under the onslaught; even the itching under her skin ebbs, settling down to a shadow of itself, but still unmistakably there.

They make a circuit of the island, uncaring of any restrictions. They walk unacknowledged in and out of the northern complex to which no outsider would be granted entrance, courtesy of a little demonic intervention. They traipse through a construction sight with nary a squawk from the workers, and pass unnoticed back through the central plaza. They push through seemingly empty stretches of sweltering swamp that nonetheless buzz and chitter and hum with unseen wildlife, undisturbed by their passing. Through it all, Aziraphale fills Crawley’s ears with his observations on humans’ linguistic development, particularly as it pertains to systems of writing, and the awful thing under Crawley’s skin eases with every step, until at last they find themselves on the far southern edge of the island, peering out into the marsh swamp beyond.

“- oh, I daresay I’ve bored you half to death with this, my dear,” says Aziraphale abruptly, as if realizing all at once that they’ve come to a stop and that he’s been speaking for a solid hour, with only Crawley’s barest necessary input. His hands fidget for a moment in front of him, twisting around the cup of nearly-forgotten cocoa.

“Not at all,” says Crawley, suddenly awash in warmth again.The abrupt change in her mood leaves her slightly dizzy, a little stunned, and overwhelmingly grateful; as Aziraphale lifts the cup to his lips, she ensures it is once again the perfect temperature, just slightly cooler than her own chest.

If he notices, or realizes the cup in his hand hadn’t been that hot seconds ago, he says nothing, and she finds herself even more grateful than before.

“Surely there’s some reason you chose here for your...vacation.” The angel is delicate about the word, as if cautious of souring Crawley’s mood again, but their prior disagreement - if it even qualifies as one - can’t get its hooks into her again. She doesn’t mind disagreeing with him, anyway; it can be great fun. But she can’t pinpoint why she’d reacted the way she did, either, so it’s not as if his caution is unwarranted.

She has to get this figured out.

“Feathered serpents,” she says. Aziraphale looks over at her, soft white brows furrowed in confusion, and she smiles. “There’s - I like it. That they’re not afraid of that.”

“Do you go often as a feathered serpent, then?”

“Not as often as I’d like,” she admits. “But it’s - freeing, innit, to have the opportunity to just...be.”

Sometimes being a form that isn’t human gets the itching out from under her skin. Sometimes. But since she doesn’t know what the itching is or how to explain it, she’s not going to bring it up. Either way, Aziraphale seems to understand, as he always does; he smiles at her, gently, and the rest of her thoughts tumble from her lips. “Anyway, Hell doesn’t have much interest in this part of the world yet. Probably won’t, until your sort start getting more involved, so that’ll be ages yet. Until then I can just - ”

She cuts herself off then, pushing at the hair plastered to her forehead by heat and humidity and a creeping sense of humiliation, but Aziraphale finishes the thought for her.

“Be,” he muses, mopping idly at his own brow, no trace of judgment or censure in his voice. There’s a thin sheen of perspiration on his forehead and temples, but somehow Aziraphale’s curls look just as fresh and unburdened as they had atop the wall at Eden. Except - no, there -

“You’ve leaves in your hair,” Crawley observes, a little incredulously.

“What?”

“Leaves,” she repeats, for sure enough, there they are. She’d taken them at first to be something behind him, a part of the backdrop of greenery and wilderness, but they’re sticking up in places, an odd green halo bursting from a cloud of white. She watches, fascinated, as Aziraphale swipes his hand through once, twice, dislodging a handful of wayward foliage.

Three times, and - they’re really in there.

Aziraphale must read something in her face; she isn’t entirely certain what it’s doing, anyway, too focused on the way his curls ruffle under his hand. Two, three - no, four - leaves have settled more firmly in place, entrenching themselves as if having now come so close to something so holy they are unwilling to depart except under extreme force.

She can relate. She wishes them luck and tries valiantly not to look at them, but Aziraphale is frighteningly adept at interpreting her facial expressions, and he sighs. “Are they still there?”

“Only a few,” she admits, unwilling to lie. “Hardly noticeable.”

There is a moment, then, where he hesitates. Crawley feels her breath catch in anticipation as he leans almost imperceptibly towards her, wondering at the possibility - is he going to ask her for help? Will she finally, after all this time, have the chance to learn for herself how those whipped curls feel under her fingers, memorize their texture, see the contrast between their snowy whiteness and her own pallid skin? Aziraphale had the better of her, in Jawa; he’s gotten his hands on her hair before. Is this the moment she gets to return the favor?

But he hesitates, leans back on his heels; she can feel the opportunity pass her by, and the disappointment aches. 

“Well,” says Aziraphale, turning the now-empty cocoa cup in his hands. “I should - I should return this, then find somewhere to bathe, I suppose. To get those last leaves out.”

“Of course,” says Crawley. She tamps down on the disappointment, bundling it up and stuffing it away where it can’t color her voice. “I’ll see you around then, angel?”

Aziraphale bites his lip for a moment, and Crawley braces herself, but finally he nods. “Yes, yes, I’ll - I’ll see you, Crawley,” he says, and turns, disappearing back towards civilization, leaving Crawley alone.

Alone on the edge of the swamp with that awful, twisty, warped feeling curling through her gut, even worse than before.

* * *

_(Nineveh, 633 BC)_

“Listen, I’ll just be a moment, don’t - ” The low murmur of an interruption, and the voices trail off, but the damage is done; Aziraphale lifts her head from the scroll before her, eyes focused on the table, listening for the rest of the disruption. It had sounded so familiar.

“Bugger _off_ ,” curses that familiar voice, closer now, and excitement thrills through Aziraphale’s veins.

“Crawley,” she calls softly, low enough not to disturb, barely loud enough to register. Nearly silent, if one’s conversational partner isn’t in possession of demonically enhanced hearing. Just a breath, nearly a whisper.

“Angel,” the demon answers, and then she rounds the corner and steps into Aziraphale’s sight.

A demon, here, in Ashurbanipal’s library - she should be chasing her out with a broom, or worse, and would be, were it anyone but Crawley. But the demon before her is welcome, a lovely spot of warm color and movement in the otherwise still library, and Aziraphale cannot help but soften at the sight of her.

Crawley is a vision, wrapped in dark cloth and a scowl, the barest slip of sheer black fabric draped over her glittering red curls enhancing their appearance rather than concealing it. Aziraphale watches as she winds her way forward, movements sinuous and silent, before dropping onto a stool opposite the angel.

“I should have guessed you’d be holed up in here,” Crawley says, golden eyes flicking across the stacks of scrolls and tablets piled on either side of the table. “Did you leave anything for anyone else to read?”

“Oh, lots,” Aziraphale answers, enchanted at the image of Crawley, here, in a library. “Ashurbanipal has collected so much, I can’t possibly read all of it in a single sitting.”

“Looks like you’re trying,” says Crawley, nudging a tablet with one long finger. Aziraphale smiles at her, fond.

“Of course I am.”

Crawley taps her fingers on the table, chewing at her bottom lip; Aziraphale studies her as she fidgets, clearly wrestling with something. She considers rerolling the scroll she’d been studying, for the sake of preservation, but Crawley is so agitated she worries movement might derail her entirely, so she waits.

It’s not an unpleasant wait, all things considered; she’s here, in a _library_ , a collection of stories and writings and - oh, so many wonderful things! She’s here, and Crawley is here, which means Crawley is safe and has sought her out, and perhaps they can have a meal together, spend the afternoon catching up. She’s in a library, surrounded by stone walls and a solid roof to keep the sun off, and Crawley is across from her, all dark shadows and sinuous grace, slouching in the stool as if proper posture has done something to offend her, long, graceful fingers tapping a rapid tattoo on the table.

“Planning to be here long?” Crawley finally blurts, then screws up her mouth in frustration as if that isn’t what she’d meant to ask at all. She won’t meet Aziraphale’s gaze, shadowed eyes flitting from scroll to tablet to table and back, so Aziraphale takes the opportunity to reroll the scroll she’d been studying and set it gently aside.

“I have no orders to the contrary,” she says delicately, and that startles a snort out of Crawley.

The demon relaxes a little, fingers slowing to a more sedate pattern, the tension in her shoulders easing just a tad. Aziraphale hides a smile.

“But, yes,” she continues, smoothing her own hands down on the table. “I was hoping to spend quite a bit of time here, cataloguing everything this library has to offer.”

“Don’t you know it all already?”

“Oh, my dear, not at all!” There is a flash of bright gold as Crawley looks up, something unguarded and soft on her face; Aziraphale captures the moment neatly and locks it away with the others.

It’s safe to do that here, in the library. Heaven has no orders for her as yet, and so she’s left to her own devices to spread goodwill and blessings where she might. They’re not overly interested in what she does in the between times, so long as it’s for the good of Heaven.

She’d asked, after - well. Best to be certain.

“Humans have so many things to say, so many stories, so many records - I couldn’t possibly already know them all,” she says, warming under the regard of those eyes, that direct gaze. “They’re so busy, all the time, and as you know we can only be in so many places at once; I daresay there’s scores of things I’ve missed.”

“And you’re going to read all of them?”

“Yes.” When Crawley lifts a brow and flicks a glance to the rest of the library surrounding them, Aziraphale amends, “I do plan to try, at least.”

“Well. Long as that’s your plan, then,” says Crawley. The tapping of her fingers slows further, until it is a single digit beating a faltering rhythm against the surface. “Nothing else on?”

“If you mean orders, no, Heaven hasn’t - but I shouldn’t tell you this,” she teases, hoping to coax a smile out of the demon. Crawley does not oblige.

“I don’t need specifics, angel, I just - ” Crawley blows out a breath and rearranges herself on the stool, folding her long limbs down into herself until she looks almost small, sitting close and yet so far away from Aziraphale. She grips her elbows, one in each hand, and braces herself on the table. “Are you - are you staying here.”

It’s not a question, not really. There’s no lift to the end, no inflection. It’s more of a statement than anything, despite its construction, but Aziraphale answers anyway, because Crawley seems to need it.

“Yes,” she says, and those long fingers spasm on the sharp elbows. “For as long as I can, until Heaven commands otherwise.”

“And there’s nothing - ” Tapping again, but this time fingertips are striking flesh. Crawley cannot seem to contain whatever it is that’s got her so spun up. “Westward? No plans for Athens?”

“Athens? Nothing I’ve heard. Why, have - have you got something on?”

Crawley doesn’t answer, busy tapping away at her elbows. Aziraphale frowns.

“Crawley, what - ”

“Don’t ask me, angel,” the demon whispers, small and seemingly involuntary. She flinches as the words hit open air, but continues. “I can’t - just. Don’t ask me, okay?”

“Crawley - ”

“Please,” the demon says, even smaller than before. Aziraphale’s heart aches. 

“Alright,” she says, and the demon inhales for the first time since sitting down, nodding, eyes closed. “Alright. I won’t ask.”

They sit in silence for a long moment, Crawley folded in on herself, Aziraphale studying Crawley. The demon’s head is bowed, eyes downcast. She looks for all the world like she’s bracing against some oncoming catastrophe, huddled here in the safety of a quiet library.

The sight of her heals something in Aziraphale’s heart, even as the sight of her like this breaks something else; she wants more than anything to reach out, to stretch across the table and lay a comforting hand on that bony shoulder, to brush garnet fire curls away from obscuring Crawley’s lowered face. Her hair pools on the table like so much blood, puddled together and spilling over the edge, and while Crawley’s hair has reminded her of so many red things - fire, and gemstones, and once she had seen the ocean almost this exact shade at sunset, though she tries her best not to associate Crawley with water - never before has it reminded her so strongly of blood.

Something is wrong, here. Something is coming, something in Athens. Something Crawley wants her to keep away from and Heaven, seemingly, cares little about.

She wants to fix it, whatever this Athens nightmare is going to be, but if Hell is involved, she knows it will cause more harm than good to try.

“Alright,” she repeats, softly, and is rewarded with another small inhale and a shaky exhale. “Come on, my dear. Let’s get you something to drink.”

* * *

_(Alexandria, 48 BC)_

He’s too late.

Crawley kicks aside the blistered remains of shelving, scowling when they collapse beneath his sandal and send up a noxious cloud of ash. He’d heard of the latest assault on the library, but too late; even use of a demonic miracle hadn’t gotten him here in time to prevent the total loss of one of the crowning jewels of the Mediterranean.

Those are Aziraphale’s words, not his - Crawley’s feelings about libraries are tied exclusively to how the angel feels about them. But he remembers how devastated Aziraphale always is when a library collapses, or falls into disrepair, or, worse, is sacked - and this promised to be worse. So much worse.

He hadn’t anticipated how _much_ worse.

He’s not entirely certain why he’s here, really. In Alexandria, sure - the angel is bound to be here somewhere, mourning the death of his favorite library, the burning of so many of his favorite stories, and Crawley is here to comfort him, or at least distract him. But he’s not likely to be in the remains of the library himself; it’ll be too painful. So why is Crawley here, covered neck to toe in dust and ash, traipsing through the charred husk of what used to be Aziraphale’s favorite place?

Crawley stops in the middle of what he thinks used to be a reading room and casts his senses wide.

Ah, there. He turns, follows his instincts, and shoves aside a charred but almost intact table, and there. There it is.

This is why he’s here.

He plucks the papyrus from the protective space left by the collapsed table, careful to avoid smearing it with ash, and gestures himself clean and clear of the sad remains of what used to be one of the greatest libraries in the world.

Crawley finds himself in a dimly lit tavern, tucked away in a corner where none of the humans will notice his abrupt arrival. It’s for the best that they don’t notice; that way lies the threat of discorporation, either at the hands of the witnessing humans or Hell when they realize he’s been spotted. Best to keep a low profile.

He starts to tuck the papyrus away in a safe pocket of non-space when he hears a familiar voice call, “Another, if you will.”

Of all the - there’s Aziraphale, seated at the bar, curly white head hung low over one - three - five mugs. He must be well and truly drowning his sorrows, then, if the staff isn’t whisking away the empties. God knows how many he had before the barkeep gave up and tried to force him to keep count.

God also knows why Crawley landed here, of all places, but he’s not going to interrogate that one too closely.

Crawley sidles up to the bar, sliding into a conveniently empty stool to Aziraphale’s left - had he even noticed leaving that? Was that there before Crawley arrived? - and gesturing to the beleaguered barkeep for a mug of his own. She glances at Aziraphale, purses her lips, and gives Crawley a pointed look; he nods in agreement, and she softens.

So a lot more than five, then.

“Angel,” says Crawley, and Aziraphale swings left to look at him.

“It’s gone, Crawley.”

Crawley firmly and pointedly sets the twisty feeling aside - this is not the time for that conversation. He’s not entirely certain what that conversation is going to be, exactly, but either way, this is about Aziraphale. This is about the angel’s grief, not his personal drama.

_Focus._

“For now,” he agrees. He nods at the barkeep when she deposits mugs in front of both of them and wraps one hand firmly around the body of the vessel. “They’ll rebuild.”

“Not like that,” Aziraphale argues. His voice is thick with tears and a little too much ale. “Not - Crawley - ”

“They’ll rebuild, angel, you know they will,” Crawley persists. “It’ll be spectacular, the rebuilding, bigger and better than before. You know it. You’ve seen it.”

A sulk twists Aziraphale’s lips, and Crawley feels his ridiculous heart twist in sympathy. “It won’t be the same.”

“Nothing is ever the same. That’s the nature of humanity, angel. Nothing here is permanent; everything changes. Even we’ve changed.”

He gestures at his shortened hair, at Aziraphale’s toga, at the collection of mugs littering the bartop. “There’s going to be something new and worth enjoying in whatever new thing they come up with, Aziraphale. The beauty is in the discovery.”

Aziraphale wraps his hands around his mug but doesn’t drink; instead, he spins it in the loose circle of his hands, watching the liquid sway inside. “Stories aren’t like stars, you know.”

It’s an odd segue, and throws Crawley for a moment. “I don’t follow.”

“You said - ” Aziraphale starts to drink, pauses, and sets the mug down untouched, pushing it towards the back of the bar. From the corner of his eye Crawley can see the barkeep nod in approval. “In the desert. _Humans live and die, cities rise and fall, but the stars - they’re the only things that’ll still be here as long as we are_.”

It has the cadence of a repetition, of a recital, as if Aziraphale has replayed those words over and over again in the intervening years. Crawley can hear the shadow of his own melancholy echoing back at him from the past, and aches for how he knows Aziraphale must be feeling.

Abandoned. Alone. 

But he isn’t.

“I thought they would, you know,” Aziraphale says, snapping Crawley from his reverie. “I thought that, with libraries, we could - keep them. Like stars. Enduring things that can stay with us when humanity cannot.”

“There are other libraries,” Crawley says gently. “They’re not all lost.”

“But some of them will be,” replies Aziraphale, pushing the empty mugs up to align with his abandoned full one. “Some of them...there were no copies, or the copies were already destroyed. It was the jewel of the Mediterranean, Crawley, and now it’s gone.”

And this is why he’d gone.

Crawley sets the papyrus gently on the bar, next to Aziraphale’s elbow. It looks so small there, slightly damaged and creased on the edge where the table had lain atop it, the last remaining piece of a grand library collection. It looks so insignificant.

When Aziraphale sees it, he freezes.

“Where did you…” he breathes, and Crawley waits for a long minute, but Aziraphale never finishes his thought.

“It survived,” says Crawley, gently. “By happenstance or by miracle, I don’t know. But it survived.”

“The Shipwrecked Sailor,” says Aziraphale, gently cradling the creased edge where the papyrus threatens to flake. “This - there was only one copy, in the library.”

Crawley tilts his head from one side to the other in as nonchalant a gesture as he can manage, with Aziraphale tenderly holding something as if Crawley has given him the moon. “It was lucky.”

When Aziraphale looks up at him, finally, blue eyes wet with something like awe, Crawley can’t feign nonchalance anymore. He directs his next words to the soft white cloud of the angel’s hair, unable to keep eye contact, knowing that if he does a confession much more damning than this will spill forth, one that neither of them can risk. Not now. Not yet.

“I found it, for you,” he admits, tracing the swoop and curve of a curl with his eyes. It makes the words flow more easily, somehow. “I walked through the remains of the library and felt for anything that felt like you, and this is what I found. I had no way of knowing what it was or its significance; I didn’t know if there would be anything to find at all.”

The white cloud of curls trembles, and Crawley’s heart trembles with it.

“But it survived, Aziraphale. It survived, because that’s what humanity does. It changes. It rises and falls and rises again, and sometimes things get lost, but other times, they survive. They persist. Stories may not be stars, angel,” and his voice cracks a little at that, so he swallows, staring determinedly at the way one curl has fallen to tickle at the inner curve of Aziraphale’s left ear. He aches to tuck it away, to smooth it back into place, to feel the softness of it beneath his fingertips and erase the memory of ash and char, but this is not the moment. This is not the time. “They may not persist forever, but then, the stars won’t, either. They just operate on a timeline closer to ours than humanity’s. Not every star we saw in the desert will still be there, at the end of things; not every star will outlast them.

But some of them will. And so will the stories. So mourn for the ones lost forever, Aziraphale, but don’t lose sight of the ones that still remain.”

Crawley falls silent, heart a stone in his chest, feeling simultaneously too big and too small, as if he’s spoken too much but said not enough. He traces the swirls of cotton cloud curls with his eyes in a way his fingers cannot, studies the top of Aziraphale’s head as if he may never see it again. Commits it to memory, just in case he’s gone a step too far this time.

But the curls shift, and the head lifts, and Crawley finds himself looking instead at very wet but very warm blue eyes, and he realizes he went just far enough.

“Thank you, my dear,” says Aziraphale. “I lost perspective for a moment. Thank you for bringing it back to me.”

His hand flattens against the papyrus as he says it, and it’s clear it’s not just perspective he’s grateful for, and Crawley’s heart is on fire, aching and trembling the way the library must have as it burned, and he knows.

This is love. There’s no other word for it. He’s been ignoring it for millennia, thinking if he doesn’t name it then it can’t be true, but - he’s in love with this ridiculous, cloud-headed angel, and has been since Eden.

It clamors against the back of his teeth for a furious, desperate moment, nearly overwhelming in its intensity.

“Let’s get you something to eat, angel,” he says instead, and Aziraphale smiles.


	5. New Beginnings

_(Rome, 41 AD)_

Rome is such an interesting place.

He’s been here for a few weeks, trying as many delicacies as he can and keeping a weather eye out for Crawley - Crowley - who has to be somewhere nearby, given the absolute decadence of Rome. Not that humans are incapable of managing that level of excess for themselves, but…

Well. Crawley had been rather put out at Golgotha, almost unnervingly so for a demon. Aziraphale hasn’t seen hide nor hair, sadly, of the demon since.

Aziraphale moves a piece on the board and hums to himself. Perhaps put out is the wrong word for it; it rather implies that Crawley - _Crowley_ \- had found the events of the day mildly inconveniencing, which is an understatement so severe as to be laughable. Aziraphale had had his own reservations about the whole affair, but it was God’s Will, and he knows better than to question her. But Crawley? Crawley fell for questioning Her. All demons did.

It really shouldn’t be such a shock that Crawley continues to question the Great Plan.

 _Crowley_. Aziraphale scolds himself. It’s a much more fitting name, anyway, than the one the demon had originally been labeled with; he finds it rolls off the tongue better, more gently, less like a judgment and more like a camaraderie. But four thousand years of habit are exceptionally hard to break in a short eight years, especially when the companion in question is nowhere to be found.

He’s been looking.

They’d discussed the name change for a while, there in Golgotha; Aziraphale, stationed as a witness but desperate for some diversion from watching the Great Plan carried out right before his eyes, had gently but thoroughly pressed Cra- _Cro_ wley for answers about her name choice. It had been bothering the demon for some time, apparently - she’d compared it to an itch that cannot be scratched, a sensation with which Aziraphale is grateful to be unfamiliar, considering how Crowley had described it. A single syllable hadn’t seemed like enough to satisfy the sort of discomfort Crowley had suffered under for centuries.

But she’d insisted, so Aziraphale had demurred, agreeable if not entirely understanding. But pressing for further answers and digging around in Crowley’s sense of self would have been the height of rudeness, and besides; it wasn’t his part to know and understand how something so small as a syllable change could correct something Crowley had struggled with for so long.

His place was to listen. To support.

Unfortunately Crowley had gotten rather riled up about the Great Plan at the midway point of hour five and could no longer be distracted by conversation about herself, and they’d spent the rest of that miserable night in silence, and he hasn’t seen the demon since.

She’d been lovely, then, even lovelier than usual; fired up with the sort of righteous indignation Aziraphale generally expects to see in Heaven, and not from a demon, gesturing harshly at the cross and eyes blazing as she interrogated the Great Plan.

Well. She had interrogated _Aziraphale_ about the Great Plan, and how exactly this could be the turning point in it, but Aziraphale had not had a great many answers to provide her. After a while Crowley had subsided, clearly frustrated, and Aziraphale had gotten the impression that this time it wasn’t just God Herself that Crowley had wanted to shake.

He suspected Crowley had wanted to shake him, too, though for the life of him he can’t understand why.

Aziraphale moves another piece on the game board and sighs. Well, eight years isn’t all that long to go between conversations; all things considered, they’ve passed much longer spans of time with much less. It’s just that they so rarely part on unpleasant terms, and Crowley hadn’t responded to any of Aziraphale’s musings about perhaps going to find something to drink, which was rather unlike her, and Aziraphale worries.

An angel, worried about a demon. He risks a quick glance upward to ensure that Heaven isn’t about to strike him down for thinking about it, then looks back at the board.

If he could just see the demon, to ensure that Crawley is okay…

“What’ve you got,” drawls a familiar voice, and Aziraphale, midway to placing another stone, looks up in surprise.

And yes, it is Crawley sitting at the bar, all dark colors and angled profile, talking to the barkeep. He abandons his game and his stool, walking carefully, studying the changes to the demon’s look - short hair again, though not so short as Troy, blood silk set off with a circlet of silver laurels. The back of the demon’s head is smooth and straight, but the front is - oh, how lovely. Three carefully arranged spit curls curve in a serpentine swirl that mimics the tattoo below.

“Crawley?” No - “ _Crowley_ ,” Aziraphale corrects immediately, and hastily applies a personal miracle to ensure he never makes that same dreadful mistake again. How unconscionably rude.

The demon turns to face him, brows lifted, eyes shaded behind darkened lenses, caution in the line of their arm and the set of their mouth. The spit curls are mirrored on the demon’s left side, too, though the curls at the top of their head have been given slightly less structure; they curve down across the demon’s forehead in a casual pattern that somehow manages to seem deliberate and cool.

Well, Crowley always has had an eye for style. Heavily masculine in the back and pointedly feminine in the front, it would unsettle and fluster anyone relying on assumption. Mercifully, Aziraphale doesn’t need assumption; experience has shown him that choices like this are deliberate on the demon’s part.

“Fancy running into you, here,” he says, taking the stool to Crowley’s right. Crowley nods, still cautious; but gestures to the barkeep to supply Aziraphale as well, so perhaps they’re not still frustrated after that discussion in Golgotha. Aziraphale decides to risk it.

“Still a demon, then?”

What a _ridiculous_ question. Before he can correct himself, Crowley snaps back, clearly still on edge, “What kind of a stupid question is that? Still a de- what else am I gonna be, an aardvark?”

Well. It had been a ridiculous question, and a rather touchy subject; perhaps he’d earned that particular snarl. He raises his cup and offers a toast, and is heartened when Crowley joins him, touching their earthenware cups together gently.

“In Rome long?”

“Just nipped in for a quick temptation,” Crowley answers. “You?”

“Well,” says Aziraphale, encouraged, “I thought I’d try Petronius’ new restaurant. I hear he does remarkable things to oysters.”

It’s a little of their usual back and forth, an offering, an overture; after the disastrous parting at Golgotha and the strained reunion just now, he isn’t entirely certain it’s welcome, but he has to at least try. So when Crowley breaks the ensuing silence with, “I’ve never eaten an oyster,” Aziraphale can hardly contain his relief.

They’re okay. More importantly, Crowley is okay, and whatever cloud that hung between them since Golgotha is no longer an obstacle; Crowley isn’t going to freeze him out and is, in fact, still amenable to spending their free time with the opposition. With an angel.

With Aziraphale.

He gets a trifle carried away in his enthusiasm, however, when he blurts, “Oh, well let me tempt you to - ”

Crowley swings around to stare at him, incredulous, even as Aziraphale trails off, embarrassed but not unhappy.

“Oh - no, that’s - that’s your job, isn’t it.” He manages, poorly, to restrain his glee at the look on Crowley’s face as the demon goggles at him for a moment.

He does not entirely manage to restrain his glee when Crowley smiles.

“Alright then, angel,” says Crowley, eyes twinkling over their smoky glasses. “Tempt me.”

* * *

_(Rome, 800 AD)_

“Tempt you to an orange, sir,” Crowley murmurs in the angel’s ear, and has to stifle a laugh when he jumps.

“Crowley, what - what are you _doing_ here?”

She gestures with the single orange in her hand, trying to encompass the whole of the event without knocking any of the other spectators aside. “Enjoying the show, same as you.”

“It’s - it isn’t a show, Crowley, you know that,” Aziraphale hisses, though he plucks the orange from her hand without comment. “This is a very important historical event.”

Now that they’ve worked out that bit of nastiness after Golgotha - Crowley had pushed too hard, frustrated and heartsick by the spectacle Heaven considered essential to their God-forsaken Great Plan, and the angel had pushed stubbornly back - she’s taken to gentle blasphemy and general disregard for the whole business, hoping it might help Aziraphale will see what a sham it all is. Aziraphale, in turn, has gotten less guarded in what he shares with Crowley, though he’s developed some sort of verbal tic over it, appending phrases like ‘foul fiend’ and ‘wily serpent’ in a tone more fond than condemning whenever they discuss Heaven or Hell’s plans.

So Aziraphale can’t be entirely surprised by Crowley’s lack of reverence for this whole charade. 

On the dais, Charlemagne is saying something; she could hear it if she bothered, but riling the angel is far too enticing. Hell didn’t have much to say about disrupting the big event, either, not after she’d laid out a long-term plan for continual tempting of the emperors into sin and excess, so they’ve left this little ceremony alone, which means Crowley is free to do as she pleases.

Which she generally does anyway, but it’s nice sometimes to not be thumbing her nose at Hell while she does it.

“Seems a little overwrought for someone claiming to be the holiest of holies,” she teases, and Aziraphale shushes her.

“He is not,” he chides. “You know as well as I do that the holiest of holies on earth is the Pope.”

Crowley leaves a moment of silence for both of them to contemplate the Popes they’ve known, and pointedly says nothing. The twist of Aziraphale’s mouth as his own words sink in speaks volumes.

“Holy Roman Emperor,” she muses instead, twiddling her thumbs behind her back and rocking on her heels. Aziraphale simply casts his eyes Heavenward as if asking God to forgive her irreverence and sets about peeling the orange.

Good luck with that. As if God has ever forgiven her anything.

“Holy Roman Emperor,” she repeats after some minutes of silence, and plucks an orange wedge from Aziraphale’s hand with which to gesticulate. “A grand title, that. Claiming, what, divine right to rule?”

“I’m certain I don’t know,” says Aziraphale primly. 

“Holy Roman Emperor. As if the Romans were paragons of virtue themselves.” She snorts and drops a string of pith on the floor before popping the entire orange wedge in her mouth and swallowing it whole.

“Crowley we are at _Mass_ ,” Aziraphale chides, more about the discarding of the pith than her eating habits, and then, revelatory and oddly concerned, “You’re in a _church_.”

“I’m well aware,” she drawls, but doesn’t protest as Aziraphale chivvies her towards the side door and into the churchyard beyond.

It’s for the best, anyway. She suspects her feet are starting to blister. So much for her theory that the lingering spiritual nastiness of Nero’s Circus would counteract the sanctity of holy ground; it had, but not for very long. She follows Aziraphale out into the sprawl of Rome and tries not to wince when she steps on stones. The snow blanketing the pathways is a welcome relief.

“What are you doing here,” he says finally, after they’ve walked for a while and the bells of St. Peter’s have chimed their message to the world.

“Told you, seeing the show.”

“Crowley,” Aziraphale chides, and Crowley rolls her eyes.

“Thought I’d see if you’ve given my offer any thought,” she says.

“Your - you can’t still be serious about that.”

“Can’t I? Why not, because Heaven won’t approve?”

Aziraphale sighs but passes her another orange wedge, markedly free of pith. A glance behind them confirms that he’s been discarding the strings as they walk.

She chews it this time, as a concession, and it makes him smile.

“I’ve tested it,” she presses, after swallowing the now mushy orange. Unpleasant, that; she won’t be doing it again. “I can bless, so I imagine you can tempt, too. ‘S not like there’s much difference in it beyond the outcome.”

“You blessed someone?”

“Why the tone of surprise,” she drawls, but he’s smiling, so she is, too. “Yeah. Just a little thing, mind. Gave the kid a chance to grow up and invent new types of math. Someday kids will all have to learn it, all over the world.”

Aziraphale considers this for a moment, then points out, “That doesn’t sound entirely like a blessing.”

“Had to write it up for the office, didn’t I,” says Crowley. “‘S not like I was taking on one of your blessings; the report had to go somewhere. But his math thing is going to help them figure out so much about the world around them, really learn what this whole Earth thing is about.”

Aziraphale stops on the bank of the Tiber to cast the orange peel into the current; Crowley stops with him, gratefully burying her feet in a snowbank. It’s cold but it’s soothing, and as her soles are still aching, she’ll suffer a little chill for some relief right now.

When she looks over at Aziraphale, trying to judge his expression, there are snowflakes in his eyelashes.

“I don’t think that would be part of the Plan,” he says slowly, as if rolling the words around in his mouth before he speaks them. It sparks a flare of hope somewhere deep in her, which is the only thing that prevents her instinctive _Sod the plan, angel_ , and allows her to temper it into something more measured, more circumspect. More enticing.

“Who are we to say what’s part of the Plan?” Is what she says instead, which is entirely the wrong sort of path to start down. Aziraphale hasn’t always taken kindly to questioning the Plan, Great, Ineffable or Otherwise, but -

“I suppose,” he says, and her heart skips a beat in surprise. She pivots in the snowbank to face him fully, mouth agape. “Perhaps we can try - just a small one, mind, nothing too flashy.”

“Small, yes, right,” she babbles. He’s agreed. He _agrees_. He’s willing to try a temptation, and that’s - honestly, that’s step one of her not entirely detailed plan at showing him how bollocks this whole thing is. If angels can tempt, and demons can bless, and neither of them outmaneuver the other - well, what’s the point? Humans get up to far more nonsense, good and bad, of their own free will as it is.

Maybe she can tempt him into a real vacation someday.

They stand there in silence for a while, Crowley gaping helplessly at him, Aziraphale gazing serenely across the Tiber. The snow is coming down thicker now, landing in his hair and setting it to sparkling, like a pattern of diamonds strewn across tufts of soft white cotton. It suits him; it looks beautiful, a little like a halo, lit up from within. It looks soft and inviting and somehow warm. It looks...ethereal.

“You’ve got snow in your hair,” she blurts, and he laughs, glancing over at her.

“So do you.”

Neither of them move to brush it off.

“So we’re really doing this,” she says, still staring at his halo of snowflakes, feeling them spark something deep in her soul. “You - you really mean it.”

“If it works,” he warns gently, “then yes. I do think you’re right, Crowley. If you can perform a blessing, then it stands to reason that I should be able to perform a temptation.”

 _You_ are _a temptation_ , she doesn’t say, but she thinks it very, very hard. _Sent by God to tempt at least this poor, pathetic demon._

“Alright,” she says, softly. He smiles at her, radiant in his crown of snowflakes, and even with her feet entrenched in snow she melts. 

“Alright,” Aziraphale agrees, and extends a hand for her to shake.


	6. Contingency Plans

_(Oxford, 1355 AD)_

Pestilence has finally stabled his horse, and Aziraphale is exhausted and heartsick.

So many people have died. So many tragic losses. She hasn’t slept in more than four millennia, and for once, she’s grateful; if the nightmares about the Flood hadn’t already ruined it for her, memories of this past decade surely would.

Every time she closes her eyes - to pause, to rest, to murmur gentle prayers over the dying - she sees the faces of the lost.

She’s holed up here at Oxford after having rung in the new year under the comforting shadow of the university. Even if she can’t attend lectures with her current corporation, being somewhere the focus isn’t on plague and disease is a much-needed balm to her soul, and Heaven doesn’t mind where she is so long as she’s scattering blessings in her wake.

The blessings come more easily than they have these past few years, now that she can bestow them upon people who aren’t actively dying. Now that she knows Pestilence has stopped his gallop across the continent. Now that she isn’t expected to minister to every dying patient and shepherd their souls to Heaven herself.

She wraps the cloak around herself a little more tightly - the wind is brisk, but not biting, and the gesture has more to do with the sudden flood of memories than the weather - and hesitates at the mouth of an alley. It’s narrow and dark, especially now that the sun has set, but it’ll deposit her neatly three doors down from her inn in less than half the time than if she sticks to the streets, and she’s an angel. It’s not like anyone will be able to cause her trouble. Although she _should_ be setting a good example for the other ladies of town, not to risk themselves in narrow corridors without an escort...

Well, the night is quiet and there are no ladies for whom an example should be set, and the virtues of expediency far outweigh whatever potential danger might think itself up to tangling with an angel of the Lord. She steps fully into the narrow corridor and starts for the promise of a warm fire and a cup of wine.

“Dangerous, a lady like yourself alone in a dark alley,” drawls a voice from the shadows.

_Crowley._

The weight of ten years of miserable duty and loneliness three times as long lifts as if it had never been there, at least for a moment; she looks around for the demon, but the shadows are long and the alley crooked, and there are too many places to hide.

Well. At least the only danger lurking in this alley is one she already knows to be very little danger at all.

“I know you’re here, Crowley,” she says, speaking to the shadows. She takes a tentative step forward, then another; cautious not out of concern for her own welfare, but to avoid colliding with another body in the dark.

“‘Course you do. Announced myself, didn’t I?”

“Not very politely.”

A scoff from somewhere to her left. “What use has a demon for politeness?”

“Plenty, if the demon is you,” she retorts, prim and pointed, and this time Crowley’s answering scoff is more fond than anything.

And suddenly there is a presence to her left, just there at the point of her elbow, close but not touching, and Aziraphale feels a warmth that has absolutely nothing to do with the lack of wind in this crooked corridor. She starts to walk forward more confidently now, towards the slightly less dark smudge she knows is the alley exit.

“What’re you doing in alleys, anyway,” asks Crowley. The demon walks slightly behind her, as if shepherding her forward, and Aziraphale indulges herself with the sort of smile her companion cannot see.

Probably.

Can demons see in the dark? She’s never asked. She arranges the smile into something a little less lovestruck and a little more fond, just in case.

“It’s the fastest way back to my rooms.”

“Sets a bad example for the humans,” says Crowley, in an endearingly eerie mirror of her earlier conundrum. It is Aziraphale’s turn to scoff, albeit more politely.

“If you see one, let me know and I shall be certain to set the best of examples,” she says, and Crowley’s answering chuckle, echoing down the alley and bouncing back at her from both sides, warms her right down to her toes. “What are you doing here, if I may?”

Crowley makes a hemming sort of sound as they step free of the alley and into the wider street. When Aziraphale turns right, the demon follows. “Just popped by to see if it’s still as stuffy here as I remember.”

“Stuffy - Cr _owley_ ,” Aziraphale admonishes. “You haven’t been pestering the University types again?”

“Loads of fun,” says Crowley. “And it’s easy, too. Hardly takes a thing to rile them up.”

Well, she can’t disagree; Aziraphale has seen a few of the visiting lecturers in and out of her little inn, and they have all been very touchy sorts, prone to anger if their bread is a little cool to the touch or their soup has the wrong ratio of broth to potato. They also become quite uncivilized if they feel they’ve been ignored.

She may have leveraged a few minor miracles to keep them from harassing the lovely woman running the inn.

“Well,” she says, unwilling to seem like she’s condoning bad behavior, even if she is privately glad to hear that someone, at least, is giving them as good as they give. “You really must find a hobby, my dear.”

“Maybe this is my hobby, angel,” says Crowley, following Aziraphale into her inn.

Aziraphale divests herself of cloak and scarf, hanging them on the pegs by the door, then turns to face Crowley and -

_Oh._

The demon is lovely in the low firelight of the main room, curls spilling every which way as they unwind a dark scarf from about their face and neck. The glow from the fireplace picks out threads of copper in their silken locks and sets the gold of their eyes ablaze over the rims of smoked glasses; the dancing shadows slide across and soften the angle of their jaw and throw the sharp points of their cheekbones into stark relief. The demon is clad, as is usual, all in black, though the braies and the kirtle are somehow two distinct shades, and the cloak they’re hanging on the peg next to Aziraphale’s is less black and more of a charcoal grey that reminds Aziraphale of Eden, all those centuries ago.

“Something on my face, angel?” asks Crowley, and Aziraphale busies herself with straightening her already perfectly hung cloak for a moment before answering.

When she does, her voice is at least normal, and not the breathy thing that had threatened when Crowley caught her staring. “Just those ridiculous glasses of yours, I fear.”

“I like them,” the demon protests, settling onto a low bench and kicking their legs out in an artless tangle that somehow manages to be both impressive and a tripping hazard. Aziraphale takes the bench to Crowley’s right and tries - and fails - not to follow the curve of Crowley’s well-turned calf.

“Keep people from knowing what I’m looking at.”

“Hmm? Oh.” Aziraphale hastily lifts her eyes to Crowley’s face, but the demon isn’t looking at her; they’re focused on the fire, twisting and adjusting on the bench until their feet are as close to the flames as they can get and not be scorched. Aziraphale spares a glance for whatever it is Crowley is pretending to wear as shoes - she strongly suspects those are just the demon’s actual feet - but her attention is caught once more, as always, by the play of firelight in Crowley’s carmine hair.

This close to the fire the copper strands are stronger, brighter; they shine in and among the darker garnet tresses like stars in the night sky, winking in and across and through curtains of shadowy curls. It’s not terribly long this time, not like Eden or Golgotha or the first millennia of their acquaintance, but nowhere near as short as Rome, much less Troy. Instead, it cascades to a spot just shy of the bottom of the demon’s shoulder blades, ending right around where ebon wings would start, were they somewhere far more private and far less chill.

She watches the slide of it as Crowley tosses their head back, tracks the way the strands slip and smooth from one side of their shoulder to the other, and completely misses whatever it is Crowley is saying.

“Pardon?”

“Said I think I might,” repeats Crowley, lips quirked up on one edge. Aziraphale wishes she had paid just the slightest bit more attention to the demon’s words, and the slightest bit less to -

No, she can’t fool even herself. She has a deep and abiding obsession with her companion’s hair, and there’s no use bemoaning that.

“Is that wise?” she hedges, uncertain what, precisely, Crowley is anticipating doing. The possibilities are, quite literally, boundless; the demon can do anything, if it strikes their fancy.

“Probably not,” Crowley agrees. “But it’ll be fun. And it’ll put a twist in all their knickers, stuck up bastards. Don’t know what to do with me when I’m like this.”

_Like this_ is accentuated with a vague hand-wave over the demon’s own slouching figure, and something clicks in Aziraphale’s mind, sparking a very different sort of fire, one she doesn’t often access: the blaze of righteous indignation.

“Are the University men causing you grief?”

There is a sharpness to Aziraphale’s tone she couldn’t set aside if she tried. The implication that someone is - that someone would _dare_ -

“Not grief, exactly,” says Crowley, looking at her steadily, head tilted so that those captivating golden eyes are in full view. “‘M not saying I can’t handle a couple of stuck up jerks, angel, and so far words are all they’ve got in their little arsenals. But if they’re jerks to me…”

“Then they’ll be worse to those who cannot defend themselves,” finishes Aziraphale, angry. She suddenly wishes she had done more than protect her dear innkeeper, and any other non-academics with the misfortune to cross paths with such odious persons, from those bastards. And the academics, too, now she considers it; surely not all of them condone that sort of bigoted, judgmental behavior. “I suppose it would be quite unangelic of me to advise you to give them Hell.”

“It would,” says Crowley, but they’re smiling, eyes glinting with mischief. “And it would be very undemonic of me to suggest that they could do with a little divine message about understanding and loving thy neighbor and whatnot.”

It’s tempting, so tempting, to agree, to play the game, to fall into the pattern, the patter, the back-and-forth they’ve perfected, the little offerings and sly asides that grant them both a measure of what Crowley calls plausible deniability. It’s tempting to nod, to smile, to match Crowley’s mischievous look with an innocent one of her own. It’s tempting to give in.

But the righteous indignation has blazed into a fury, fed by the realization that someone out there - that _multiple_ someones out there - have looked at this demon, at _her demon_ , and seen anything less than perfection, and she knows it’s just not going to be enough.

“No,” says Aziraphale, and the stone in her voice and the fire in her eyes make Crowley’s eyebrows jump upwards in surprise. “No, I don’t think a divine message is quite the thing.”

She takes in the view before her, her demon sprawled there, painted in shades of smoke and firelight, the copper and garnet of their hair and the blazing gold of their eyes, and promises, “I think it’s time the lecturers do some learning of their own.”

If she has to rework the whole of the English language to make it happen, there’ll be a place for Crowley. For Crowley, and for people like Crowley.

Bigotry be damned.

* * *

_(Westminster, 1613 AD)_

There is a party going on downstairs, celebrating a wedding or some such nonsense. Crowley isn’t particularly interested; she’s here to watch the stars with her new telescope, courtesy of that genius Kepler, which is why she set up on a portion of the roof nosy partygoers are unlikely to stumble across.

So it’s a bit of a surprise when she hears footsteps behind her.

“Oi, you’re not supposed to be on the - hello, Aziraphale.”

“Does it do much good, warning people that they shouldn’t be on the roof, while on the roof yourself?” asks the angel. Crowley would think she was being a right twat if she didn’t sound so sincerely curious.

Because she does sound sincere, Crowley _knows_ she’s being a right twat, and she grins. “Makes them think twice.”

“Hmm. Well, that’s something, I suppose.”

There’s no moon tonight - perfect night for stargazing - but the starlight and her own affinity for low light are enough to illuminate the vision that is Aziraphale. The angel has clearly dressed for whatever occasion is going on in the palace below, all creams and silks and lace, with a farthingale nearly as wide as she is tall spreading her skirts around her. Her hair is piled up in an elaborate coif that looks like it might take three hours and an army to unpin, her lips softly painted. There is a faint blush to her cheeks that looks for all the world like the result of a slight chill, although Crowley knows it takes more than four minutes on a rooftop in February for even the deepest of freezes to affect her angel.

The neckline of her dress plunges far more daringly than Crowley had ever dreamed the angel would risk, and it takes her a solid minute to stop tracing the generous swell of her décolletage with her eyes, greedy for every inch of angel normally denied her.

When she drags herself back to the present, Aziraphale is speaking, studying the telescope as if she’s never seen one before. Which, to be fair, isn’t impossible. Crowley has managed to get her hands on one of the first - and one of the best.

“- quite remarkable looking,” Aziraphale is saying. Her hands rest daintily on the leading edge of her farthingale as she leans forward just slightly to study the telescope further, and Crowley stares up at the night sky to avoid any more staring. She’d tucked her glasses into a safe pocket of non-space upon reaching the roof. She hadn’t expected to need them here.

It would be too obvious if she reached for them now, so she stares fixedly at the sky instead.

“What does it do?”

“Helps you look at the stars,” Crowley answers. She steps forward to fidget with the telescope, though it wouldn’t dare lose focus. “Here, you can - ”

But Aziraphale is already bending down to peer into the eyepiece, exclaiming, “Oh, they’re lovely! Crowley, they seem so close!”

“Yeah, angel. That’s the beauty of the telescope - we can see a lot more than humans can, so some of it’s redundant for us, but - ” She stops herself, uncertain, and steps aside, giving Aziraphale space with the telescope and her new view of the stars.

Aziraphale straightens, looks at her; Crowley keeps her eyes pointed determinedly skyward. 

“It’s almost like being there,” says the angel, and Crowley feels the air whoosh from her lungs.

“Yeah. Yeah, it’s like being there again.”

There is a pause, heavy and poignant, in which Crowley realizes just how much she has revealed with a single word and also, a little desperately, that there’s no way to casually change the subject. Any attempt to derail what might be coming is as good as a confession. Aziraphale will grant her the moment, will even grant it gracefully, but the damage is done.

She knows. Or if she doesn’t know, she suspects.

“Crowley,” Aziraphale says softly, and there is the barest shuffle of angelic slipper on rough stone roof. “Again?”

She can’t look at her; can’t face the shock and disappointment she imagines on that gentle face. Six thousand years and she’s kept this secret, guarded it jealousy against any and all comers, tucked it deep down in the depths of her soul. The only secret more protected than this is how much she loves Aziraphale, and even that’s more of an unspoken thing than a true secret, kept quiet only because it’s too dangerous to say out loud.

This is private. This is personal.

This is painful.

But Aziraphale - she was furious for Crowley, not three hundred years prior. Not furious _at_ , but furious _for_ , a distinction she’d never expected to see, not from a human and definitely not from an angel. She’s let Crowley keep her secrets, has indulged her whims, has allowed herself to be talked round to Crowley’s harebrained schemes. Has acknowledged, albeit begrudgingly, that some of those schemes are less harebrained and more brilliant.

Has sheltered her from the sting of raindrops and the barbs of bigotry both - Crowley is well aware who influenced that translation of _Guillame de Palerne_ , and why. Has rescued her from the depths of her own foul moods and the sanctified grounds of more than one church. Has protected her, physically and emotionally.

Has loved her, quietly but steadily, even if she, too, knows it’s too dangerous to say out loud.

It’s the last secret, and there’s only one person she would ever share it with.

“I made them,” says Crowley, gazing up at the stars. She can feel Aziraphale go stiff, then soft, then guarded beside her; surprise, realization, caution. Awareness.

Protectiveness. It makes it easier, somehow.

“I’m not supposed to remember, but I do,” she continues, and the words pouring out now feel like a wound, held open over centuries and millennia, finally purged of the sulfuric sting and slowly closing. “I don’t remember much, but I remember them. I think I loved them too much to lose them entirely.”

On her better days, she’s considered it a blessing; in her worst moments, a torment. Now, spoken aloud, confessed under the stars she’s loved so dearly, to the one she loves more dearly still, she feels it for what it truly is: an echo. A part of her ingrained so deeply not even the Fall could take it from her, an integral part of her being. A miracle, neither divine nor infernal. A memory. A truth.

“You’ve never said anything,” says Aziraphale cautiously, and the laugh that bubbles on her lips is part grief and part disbelief.

“Would you have believed me, then?” Crowley asks, turning finally to look at the angel beside her, silhouetted against the night sky. She slips her hands into the folds of her skirt; no convenient farthingale for her, but the concealment feels better, feels right. “Strange demon slithers up next to you, bare hours after getting the humans kicked out of Eden and possibly losing you your job, and says ‘yeah, I remember making those.’ Would you have believed me?”

She isn’t sure what she wants to hear: _yes, of course_ , said with that quiet certainty Aziraphale has after giving a thought due consideration? _Possibly not_ , with the begrudging tone that comes when Aziraphale is forced to admit Crowley is right, but doesn’t want to? _No, of course not_ , with the little shadow of shame that sometimes slips loose when Crowley has caught her in a moment of soul-searching honesty, and never fails to spark an answering shame in Crowley, for tormenting an angel so?

All of these and none of them, and so there must be no good answer.

Now that she’s turned, she can’t stop looking; the starlight illuminates the pale curls of Aziraphale’s updo and paints her in soft whites and silvers. She nearly glows with it, a halo of celestial light, gentler and softer and so much cooler than any Heavenly halo could hope for, in every sense of the word. Crowley aches to touch it, to reach out and break the glow with her fingers, insert the shadow of herself into that ethereal light and pluck the carefully pinned curls apart.

Instead, she clenches her hands in her skirt and waits.

“Well,” says Aziraphale finally, and Crowley’s breath stills in anticipation. There is no good answer; she wants all of them and none of them, wants to hear whatever it is Aziraphale is resolved to say and wants to cover her ears and flee the roof. Wants to step close and promise that it doesn’t matter, whatever the answer is, and wants to shake the angel and beg her to speak.

It has been barely three seconds since Aziraphale broke the silence, and Crowley cannot bear it.

“Well,” repeats Aziraphale, her own eyes bright and clear, focused on Crowley and cool and warm all at once. “I suppose we’ll never know, my dear.”

Warmth floods her, fills her veins and suffuses her limbs. It is somehow everything she wanted and nothing she feared; an acceptance of the impossibility of their situation, past and present, and somehow also a commentary on the strength of their bond. A lack of judgment and a confession of uncertainty. A nod to their history, and a promise for their future.

An acceptance. A forgiveness. 

A promise.

It shouldn’t be possible, and yet: somehow Aziraphale found the perfect answer to a question Crowley had never expected to ask. She smiles, involuntarily, and Aziraphale smiles back. The starlight pinpoints the silver in the angel’s embroidery, pours itself into the soft white ocean of her décolletage, paints a halo into the curls of her hair. It wraps itself around Aziraphale in the embrace Crowley cannot offer, and it holds her in a way Crowley cannot. Not yet. It may be decades, centuries - it will surely take the end of the world, or worse, before she can reach out, can touch. Can hold.

But for now, there is the starlight. For now, there is the knowledge that she set those same stars in the sky, the ones that now bathe her angel in celestial light, that cradle her in their shining embrace. For now, Aziraphale knows whose hands crafted the light that loves her so deeply, that traces her curves and soft edges with the gentle touch of a lover. For now, it doesn’t hurt.

For now.

For now, for the first time - it is enough.

* * *

_(London, 1967 AD)_

Aziraphale paces the front of his shop, waiting. Worrying.

Fretting.

Across the street - across _his street!_ \- Crowley is holed up in the back room of a dive bar, discussing what might possibly be the demon’s worst idea yet. A heist for holy water, of all the ridiculous, nonsensical, absolutely absurd plans…

He reaches the window that faces towards the bar and scowls at its neon facade. Crowley is in there. Crowley is in there, planning, plotting with humans to steal from a church. To steal _holy water_. From a _church_.

Frustrated, Aziraphale spins on his heel, presents his back to the hot, uncaring lights of the bar and stalks away across the shop. He’d thought Crowley would leave it alone, after their argument, had thought - well. If he’s being honest with himself - admittedly not his best quality - but if he’s being truly honest with himself, he’d suspected that little argument wasn’t the last of it. Crowley is nothing if not persistent; history has proven that. But Aziraphale had hoped, had wanted it to be the end. Had ignored that little trickle of unease and shushed the quiet and grateful voice that tried, time and again, to point out how vanishingly rare it was for the demon to truly give up on something.

And how he never gave up on anything after just one single try.

Frustrated still and annoyed with himself to boot, he storms back to the window, glaring at the bar as if it might sense his fury and eject its erstwhile occupant. The bar, being a relatively new addition to the neighborhood and not yet attuned to the energies of its angelic neighbor, does no such thing.

When he spins away to pace again, the thermos sits innocuously next to the till, exactly where he hadn’t left it last.

He doesn’t keep holy water in the shop. Won’t risk it, not around Crowley; there are very few things on Earth that can permanently damage or kill a demon, and he lost track of the sword all the way back in Eden. It belongs to the humans, now, and that’s for the best. He’d given it to them and he plans for them to keep it. Perhaps it might lose some of its potency, the longer it lingers in their hands.

But holy water - he won’t risk it.

The humans have gotten their hands on it often enough to learn the trick of it, and have learned to make their own, less effective version. The holy water in whatever church it is Crowley is planning to rob will be dangerous, but not deadly. He’ll likely end up with blisters worse than the ones from the church bombing, the sort that no angelic miracle can touch - the damage to Crowley’s feet had been severe, but not unmanageable, even if it had taken three weeks before he deemed it safe for the demon to walk again - but the sort of holy water humans, even blessed humans, create is far from fatal to a being as thoroughly, powerfully occult as Crowley.

The holy water in that thermos, on the other hand, will kill demons with a drop.

He’s not even certain why he has it.

No, that’s untrue; he knows why he has it. He _made_ it, the night of the bombing. Blessed it right there in the tiny kitchen space off the back room while Crowley slept the deep sleep of the physically exhausted not thirty paces away, sprawled across his sofa, head propped on one end and lightly bandaged feet on the other, hat and glasses knocked askew. Had blessed it with the demon quite clearly in sight, with his own hands shaking over the bowl of ash-choked water, fingers and heart trembling at the enormity of what it was he was attempting. 

Blessing the water that had washed a demon’s feet.

The blessing had stripped the ash and grime and blood from the water, scoured it clean with the burning light of Heaven, and Crowley hadn’t even so much as flinched on the sofa. Aziraphale had held his breath the entire time, torn between hoping the demon would awaken mid-blessing and hoping he’d stay safely asleep so that Aziraphale would have time to hide the evidence.

It shouldn’t have been possible, what he did; the water should have been tainted from its prolonged and intimate contact with an occult being, too tainted for even the strongest of miracles. The best he should have been able to manage was to bring it back to human base, to strip it of its befoulment. Instead, it had burned cold and clear, smoking just a little on the surface, and when he’d touched it, it sang, resonating with his Grace in a way only the most blessed of objects ever could.

Aziraphale spent the rest of that night rethinking everything Heaven had declared about demons.

He’d banished the bowl, and the rags and towels they’d used, too. Had gestured away all evidence of his blasphemous ministrations for the one being in all creation he should have taken as his enemy, and somehow seized upon instead as his beloved. Had vanished it into the firmament, except -

Except for the water, which he couldn’t bring himself to destroy, even knowing the danger it posed - to both of them. It shouldn't have been possible.

And yet.

So he’d decanted the water into a thermos, first, ensured the lid was screwed on tight, and tucked it away into the space between, where no one - not angel, not demon, not unusually gifted human - would ever find it. And then he’d destroyed the rest of the evidence, and tried never to think about that impossibly sanctified water again.

He stares at the thermos, unsettled and shaken, and knows what it means.

Human blessed holy water is dangerous, yes, but rarely deadly. Crowley would have to drink a gallon of it to manage any irreparable damage to himself, and honestly, that is the absolute least of Aziraphale’s worries. If Crowley decides his existence is done, it won’t be holy water that takes him; it won’t have enough flash. His protest has never been about what Crowley might do _with_ the holy water.

It’s about what it might do _to_ him.

Which is, again, ridiculous - he knows, logically, that it can do very little. Blisters and burns and boils, perhaps, but nothing irreversible. Nothing permanent. But the protest lingers; it is not a reaction Aziraphale can control.

He has struggled through the years with Crowley and water, has wrestled, helplessly, with the Heavenly knowledge that properly blessed water will smite a demon into nothingness, will wipe them out of existence and into obscurity. It is a weapon that was used with extreme prejudice at the end of the War. He’d witnessed it, though blessedly had never wielded it.

Sheltering Crowley from the rain at Eden had been a reflex he didn’t understand until much, much later.

So when Crowley had asked for holy water, it had been like all of his worst fears collided all at once, and he hadn’t quite been able to contain his reaction - or moderate it. Storming off had been a distinctly poor choice, but better, at the time, than trying to explain; Crowley has never had quite the same head for dangers to himself as he’s had about dangers to Aziraphale. It’s endearing, really, especially since considering that while there are very few things that can permanently harm a demon, there are even fewer capable of doing such to an angel.

But Crowley’s chances of getting real, genuine holy water are vanishingly small, and Aziraphale, thinking himself the only avenue, had considered that closed down quite neatly. If Crowley cannot get it from him, then perhaps he would give up on the whole preposterous insurance idea entirely.

Except he hasn’t, and now he’s planning to make do with the cut-rate human issue, which won’t stop someone trying to hurt Crowley so much as enrage them. And the thermos is sitting there, staring at him in a way inanimate objects shouldn’t be capable of staring.

“Alright,” says Aziraphale, voice cracking in the silence of the empty shop. It sounds small and tired and heartsick, and he heaves air into his neglected lungs to try again. “Alright.”

It’s fitting, he supposes. The holy water he shouldn’t have been able to make, being handed to a being who shouldn’t be able to wield it. He wonders, deep down, if this holy water is even capable of harming Crowley - it had touched him, once, had washed the grime from his feet and soothed the blisters on his toes. Does it remember, even now? How long had Aziraphale spent right here in this shop, just there, over by the sofa on his knees, hands in the bowl, gently scrubbing at Crowley’s arches, where the skin had cracked and peeled? He had gone slowly, both out of caution and a need to linger; the opportunities they have for touch are so rare that even wound ministration is precious, and Aziraphale has always been greedy.

He could have spent days tending to Crowley, but had restricted himself to hours. Enough hours for the sun to rise and Crowley’s heels to wrinkle and prune, for Aziraphale’s hands to go swollen and thick with water retention. Hours with both of them mingling there, soaked in the same water that now sits, blessed, in an accusatory tartan thermos.

“Yes, yes,” Aziraphale tells it, feeling more than a little ridiculous. “I’ll get on with it.”

He turns back to the window to see Crowley stepping out of the bar, all long limbs and dark colors, his hair - good Lord. Have fashions really gotten so dreadfully out of hand? The garnet fire locks, so lovely as draping curls, so stunning as short strands, have settled somewhere in a vaguely unappealing middle. The ends are shaggy, the bangs a distraction, and yet the color is as enticing as always, even under the unforgiving glare of the neon lights, that stunning red. Red like garnets, like fire, like blood silk and sunsets. Like apples.

And the longer Aziraphale stares at it, the more appealing it becomes. It’s a lovely length, accentuating Crowley’s animated face and just brushing the collar of his turtleneck. There’s no curl, but there’s body, a volume that begs for closer study, that looks like it might swallow his hand whole, should he be so lucky. 

Crowley breaks away from the man he’s been conversing with and sets off down the street, hair swaying with the rhythm of his steps, and Aziraphale watches him go for a long moment before remembering what, precisely, this whole evening has been about.

When he reaches for the doorknob, the thermos is already in his hand.


	7. Soft Epilogue

_(London, 2021 AD)_

Crowley leans back, into the angel, and tosses his glasses somewhere on the floor.

“You should put those away properly, my dear,” says Aziraphale, though it’s more of a distracted murmur than an admonishment. His hands are busy combing through Crowley’s hair, or he’d snap them somewhere safe himself; past experience has proven that.

Past experience. They have past experience with this. Something in Crowley thrills at the notice.

“Later,” says Crowley, tilting his head. The angel’s hands stroke obligingly down, fingertips brushing at the back of Crowley’s neck, thumbs rasping over trapped strands. The gentle tug and pull as Aziraphale weaves his fingers through Crowley’s hair is, in a word, divine; he manages to swallow the moan of appreciation, but not the smile.

“I think I need to apologize,” says Aziraphale quietly, and Crowley’s head snaps up.

“Angel, please, I thought we were done with this.”

“Are we? I don’t recall agreeing to anything of the sort.”

Crowley groans and rolls his head to bury his face in Aziraphale’s knee, although he’s careful not to dislodge the angel’s hands. “Of course you don’t,” he mutters into soft linen, fighting the warring urges to scowl and smile at the same time. “You never agree to anything, you bastard.”

“And anyway, I have quite a lot to apologize for,” Aziraphale continues, as if Crowley hasn’t said a thing.

“You really don’t.”

Aziraphale tugs for a moment on the delicate hairs at Crowley’s nape, and the demon goes pliant, mouthing silent imprecations to himself and the inside of Aziraphale’s knee.

“I’ve been thinking about it,” he says, combing one hand though the demon’s curls while the other keeps a firm grip. “And I - darling, do remove your face from my knee.”

“Won’t,” says Crowley, and does it anyway, rolling his face until it’s only his forehead resting there. Aziraphale sighs and pets his hair.

“I think I need to apologize to you, for taking so long.”

“This again?”

“Hush.”

“I’m serious, angel. If I’ve told you once, I’ve said it a thousand times; you don’t owe me an apology, not for anything.”

“Don’t I?” asks Aziraphale, and his voice is soft, wavering; Crowley knows without looking that he’s got that lost look on his face, the one he gets when he’s been overthinking their history, finding ways to punish himself for actions never taken or words not spoken or whatever other nonsense he’s convinced himself is an unconscionable crime. “I never - ”

“It was too dangerous,” interrupts Crowley, pressing a kiss to Aziraphale’s trousered knee. “We’ve talked about this, Aziraphale. No matter how much we wanted, or how desperately we hoped, it would never have been safe. Heaven wouldn’t have let you love me out loud, and Hell certainly wouldn’t have let me love you at all. There was nothing we could do. We needed Adam.”

“I needed you,” says Aziraphale, and Crowley’s heart melts.

“You had me,” he answers, pressing a longer kiss to the same spot. “You’ve always had me. Always will, angel. There’s no getting rid of me now.”

“Perish the thought.” A shaky inhale, a watery exhale. Aziraphale’s fingers comb through and part Crowley’s curls, lingering at the curve of his ear. “I just wish - oh, my dear. My dearest, my love. I wish it had been different.”

That’s new; Crowley gives it a moment to settle, to sit between them, before answering. “I don’t.”

The surprise in Aziraphale’s voice is genuine and sharp. “You don’t?”

“‘Course not,” says Crowley. He draws one leg up, tucks the other beneath it, and leans a little further back, into the sheltering vee of the angel’s knees. “If it had been different, then maybe it wouldn’t have worked out. Maybe we wouldn’t have tried to stop Armageddon, maybe we wouldn’t have mucked it all up. Maybe we would have run off together, and spent the rest of our lives hiding. Or worse.”

“I never told you that I loved you,” says Aziraphale, fingers tight around Crowley’s hair. “I never said - ”

“Neither did I,” Crowley points out.

“You didn’t have to,” protests Aziraphale. “I could feel - ”

“And neither did you,” Crowley interrupts. “Just because I can’t feel love, angel, doesn’t mean I didn’t know. You aren’t as subtle as you think.”

He turns to press a kiss to the other knee, but Aziraphale’s hands are clenched tightly enough that he can’t quite reach. 

“And anyway, I owe you an apology, then,” says Crowley, and stifles a smile at Aziraphale’s squawk of protest.

“You most certainly do not!”

“Well, if you’re going to keep insisting on all these unnecessary apologies to me - ”

“They’re hardly unnecessary - ”

“- then I’m going to give as good as I get. I’m sorry - ”

“There’s nothing for you to apologize for, Crowley.”

“- for pushing,” Crowley finishes, and feels Aziraphale’s hands go lax in his hair. He steals the moment to press a kiss to the second, neglected knee. “You needed to process things at your own pace, and sometimes I pushed too hard.”

“You never - ”

“Caral,” interrupts Crowley, and hears Aziraphale’s jaw shut with a snap. “Golgotha. The bandstand, right before the world didn’t end. Hell, probably a million more times I can’t name right now.”

“You were frustrated,” says Aziraphale, resuming his finger combing. “It’s understandable.”

“But it wasn’t fair to you,” says Crowley. “And I owe you an apology. I’m sorry.”

“It wasn’t fair to you, either,” says Aziraphale. He gathers Crowley’s hair into a thick bundle and plunges his hands into it, tangling his fingers in and out of the strands. Crowley leans a little further back into the sensation. “But - you don’t need to apologize to me, my dear. I should be apologizing to you. And I was, before you interrupted.”

“I know,” says Crowley. “I was making a point.”

A silence falls between them, broken only by the rasp of Crowley’s hair through Aziraphale’s hands and the low crackle of the nearby fireplace. 

“Perhaps,” says Aziraphale, and Crowley’s heart perks up at the contemplative tone in his voice. “Perhaps I don’t - perhaps it’s not necessary that I apologize,” he offers.

“It isn’t,” Crowley agrees. “It really isn’t.”

“But if I don’t have to - Crowley. Will you be cross with me, if…”

Crowley waits for his angel to finish, even though the answer, whatever the question, is no. He won’t be cross. Confused, perhaps, maybe saddened, but never cross.

When Aziraphale lets the silence linger a little too long, Crowley prompts, “If?”

“IfIsaythatIwantto,” Aziraphale finishes in a rush, as if all the air has come out of him at once. Crowley takes a moment to pick the syllables apart and set them into words, then a longer moment to consider it carefully, aware of how much a request like that costs.

He made one himself, just earlier, settling down in front of Aziraphale and tilting his head back. Aziraphale hadn’t hesitated, but then, it’s becoming a routine for them now; a thing Crowley hardly has to ask for, but makes him nervous sometimes all the same.

This is a first time ask, and if he answers too quickly, it’ll seem like he hasn’t given it full consideration, so he waits another ten seconds before speaking.

“I’ll never be cross with you, angel. Not for that. Not for anything. I - ” The words get tangled and it takes a moment for Crowley to sort them out in his mouth, but he forges on, “I have only ever protested because you don’t owe me anything, and I hate that you feel like you do. You’ve given me everything, Aziraphale, everything that matters; shelter, and hope, and love, and not a single one of those things was owed, and I treasure them more than anything. So you don’t owe me, and you never will.”

“I -”

“But if you _want_ something,” Crowley continues, undeterred, and feels Aziraphale subside behind him. “If you need it. If apologizing helps ease the parts of you that cause you torment, then yes, angel. Yes, always yes. Tell me whatever it is you need to say, and ask me what you need me to answer, not because you owe it to me, but because you need it from me. I can never, will never be cross at you for that. I know how that feels, Aziraphale,” he says, and tilts his head up, eyes closed against the sudden swell of tears. “And you’re patient with me every time I ask you.”

“Of course I love you,” says Aziraphale, bringing his hair-filled hands around to cup Crowley’s cheeks from behind. “I hate that you’ve ever doubted - ”

“It’s not you I’m doubting, angel. Promise me you know that.”

“I hate that you’ve ever doubted that you can be loved,” Aziraphale insists, and presses a kiss to Crowley’s upturned forehead.

“And I hate that you feel like you have anything to apologize for,” Crowley answers. His eyes blink open to see Aziraphale there, close, so close, lips still pressed to his forehead and blue eyes wet with tears, and Crowley reaches up to thread his own hands into soft white angel curls. What a sight they must be, tangled up in each other, contorted together like this; it makes Crowley smile, involuntarily, to think of it, and Aziraphale smiles back in answer. 

“But I will never be cross with you when you need to hear something from me. So yes, Aziraphale. I forgive you, fully and wholeheartedly, now and forever. I forgive you for waiting. I forgive you for being careful, and cautious, and scared. I forgive you for everything. And the next time you need to hear it, just ask.”

It’s a little awkward to wipe Aziraphale’s tears from this angle, but he manages; the angel pulls in a desperate, shaky breath. “Oh, my dear, you always know exactly what to say. I love you so much.”

“I love you too, Aziraphale,” says Crowley, and levers up just enough to brush a kiss against the soft tilt of his angel’s nose.

It works; Aziraphale chuckles, then laughs, pressing a kiss of his own to Crowley’s hair. His hands pull back and resume their stroking, and Crowley curls into himself a little, warm and content. He tucks his knee a little tighter to his chest and settles in, settles back.

Aziraphale hums, fingers tangled in Crowley’s hair, and they pass the rest of the night in comfortable, blissful silence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, for real, go see idanit's absolutely stunning work in all its glory [here](https://tmblr.co/Z5f9XWZhAdzHGq00) \- or on instagram [here](https://www.instagram.com/p/CLE6kZVF3fB/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link) \- and follow them, because I cannot imagine missing out on brilliant art like this when the follow button is right there.
> 
> On a sappier note, this has been the best possible experience, and I could not have asked for a better artist ♥ Thank you for coming on this journey with us.


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